Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)
I have brought “slime mold” and “ant farming” back under David’s theory of evolution, since we have left the original subjects so far behind.
dhw: I have always brought God in as the possible inventor of cellular intelligence! The disagreement between us is over your insistence that your God either preprogrammed or dabbled every single life form, lifestyle, strategy and natural wonder, whereas I propose that (theistic version) he gave them the intelligence to do their own designing.
DAVID: As usual bringing in God when you have no explanation for a natural appearance of intelligence. You can't have it both ways.
God's existence is not the subject of our discussion! The question is whether evolution is directed by cellular intelligence or divine programming/dabbling. My proposal allows for God as the inventor of cellular intelligence. However,the alternative sources of this would be chance and/or some form of panpsychism. I leave that open. What we cannot have “both ways” is divine programming/dabbling and autonomous intelligence.
DAVID (re leaf-biting): You have your brain sitting in Miss Bee, but not acting as a human brain would have to act to see the relationship. Axiom: two events separated in time cannot be accepted as related without multiple examples recorded (mentaly or written). This is how observational science works.
It’s not my brain sitting in Miss Bee, and she is not an observational scientist! She simply noticed that a fortnight after she bit a leaf, the plant flowered. So she told her buddies, they tried it, and it worked! You seem to believe that in order to perform the trick, bees should think like humans, can’t do so, and therefore God had to do the thinking for them!
dhw: (Under “ants control aggression”) If God exists, he might have dabbled with their genome each time in order to “advance their intelligence”, but I reckon it’s more likely that intelligence was built into the first cells and inherited in different forms by all the different combinations of cells that led to all the different life forms.
DAVID: Sounds like my pre-programming thought.
Your divine 3.8-billion-year-old programme for ant and bee strategies is the exact opposite of strategies designed by autonomous (perhaps God-given) intelligence.
dhw: Instead of your God preprogramming or dabbling everything, I have him endowing the first cells with intelligence, and this was inherited in different forms….see bolds above.
DAVID: Thank you for accepting pre-programming by God. Why not accept God? You are still having it both ways, because you have no explanation of intelligence without him.
I wrote “instead of preprogramming”, and you interpret that as acceptance of preprogramming! See above. And see my first paragraph as regards your attempt to conflate two separate issues: 1) the existence of cellular intelligence, and 2) its possible origin.
dhw: I just can’t understand why your all-powerful God would create 100-200 billion galaxies just for the sake of producing H. sapiens. The same problem as with all those different extinct life forms etc. over 3.X thousand million years, when he only wanted one.
DAVID: Just accept it as His course of action. He is in charge of creation his way. And, surprise, His reasons may not fit your human expectations.
Since you cannot find any logical reason why your all-powerful God would have designed countless millions of galaxies, life forms, natural wonders etc. for the sole purpose of designing one life form, H. sapiens (plus food), why should I “accept” that this was his chosen method of fulfilling what you think was his single purpose? You continue to ignore this, the subject of our disagreement.
DAVID: I don't ignore it. You won't accept any aspect of my reasoning. Your double talk describes in the bold an exact description of evolution, which is his method of creation. I don't need to know his reasoning, if I accept history as the evidence for his choice, I know His choice, and guesses as to his possible reasons are just guesses. [...]
And so once again you slide over the illogical COMBINATION of your rigid beliefs! Which choice do you “know”? We both believe evolution happened, and so if God exists, evolution was his choice of method to fulfil whatever may have been his purpose. You do not “know” that H. sapiens was his purpose, or that he directly designed every life form, natural wonder etc., or that he is all-powerful, always in control, and can do whatever he wants in any way that he wants. These three guesses of yours leave with “no idea” how to fit them together with the history of evolution, and so you would prefer to stop reasoning, and to reject any alternatives to your three guesses because – more of your “logic” - they entail thought patterns similar to ours although according to you he probably/possibly has thought patterns similar to ours.
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DAVID (under “…econiche importance”) : Same view. Econiches are absolutely necessary for all of living organisms food supply. The vast diversity of the bush of life allows this to happen naturally, until humans step in to change things.
Agreed. Thank you for not trying to link this to your theory that the vast diversity of past econiches was somehow necessary for your God to fulfil his one and only purpose of H. sapiens and his econiches.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell 
, Friday, May 29, 2020, 22:58 (1637 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As usual bringing in God when you have no explanation for a natural appearance of intelligence. You can't have it both ways.
dhw: God's existence is not the subject of our discussion! The question is whether evolution is directed by cellular intelligence or divine programming/dabbling. My proposal allows for God as the inventor of cellular intelligence. However,the alternative sources of this would be chance and/or some form of panpsychism. I leave that open. What we cannot have “both ways” is divine programming/dabbling and autonomous intelligence.
It's either one or the other.
DAVID (re leaf-biting): You have your brain sitting in Miss Bee, but not acting as a human brain would have to act to see the relationship. Axiom: two events separated in time cannot be accepted as related without multiple examples recorded (mentaly or written). This is how observational science works.dhw:It’s not my brain sitting in Miss Bee, and she is not an observational scientist! She simply noticed that a fortnight after she bit a leaf, the plant flowered. So she told her buddies, they tried it, and it worked! You seem to believe that in order to perform the trick, bees should think like humans, can’t do so, and therefore God had to do the thinking for them!
You are having Miss Bee reaching a solution relating the two very separate events on one observation! No true scientist would make that obvious mistake. Nor would any rational human.
DAVID: Sounds like my pre-programming thought.dhw: Your divine 3.8-billion-year-old programme for ant and bee strategies is the exact opposite of strategies designed by autonomous (perhaps God-given) intelligence.
Autonomous intelligence comes from the appearance of automatic but reasonable reactions.
dhw: Instead of your God preprogramming or dabbling everything, I have him endowing the first cells with intelligence, and this was inherited in different forms….see bolds above.dhw: I just can’t understand why your all-powerful God would create 100-200 billion galaxies just for the sake of producing H. sapiens. The same problem as with all those different extinct life forms etc. over 3.X thousand million years, when he only wanted one.
DAVID: Just accept it as His course of action. He is in charge of creation his way. And, surprise, His reasons may not fit your human expectations.
dhw: Since you cannot find any logical reason why your all-powerful God would have designed countless millions of galaxies, life forms, natural wonders etc. for the sole purpose of designing one life form, H. sapiens (plus food), why should I “accept” that this was his chosen method of fulfilling what you think was his single purpose? You continue to ignore this, the subject of our disagreement.
DAVID: I don't ignore it. You won't accept any aspect of my reasoning. Your double talk describes in the bold an exact description of evolution, which is his method of creation. I don't need to know his reasoning, if I accept history as the evidence for his choice, I know His choice, and guesses as to his possible reasons are just guesses. [...]
dhw: And so once again you slide over the illogical COMBINATION of your rigid beliefs! Which choice do you “know”? We both believe evolution happened, and so if God exists, evolution was his choice of method to fulfil whatever may have been his purpose. You do not “know” that H. sapiens was his purpose, or that he directly designed every life form, natural wonder etc., or that he is all-powerful, always in control, and can do whatever he wants in any way that he wants. These three guesses of yours leave with “no idea” how to fit them together with the history of evolution, and so you would prefer to stop reasoning, and to reject any alternatives to your three guesses because – more of your “logic” - they entail thought patterns similar to ours although according to you he probably/possibly has thought patterns similar to ours.
Again the dishonest distorted 'no idea' mantra. Any ideas would be unproven useless guesses.
And the next distortion about similar thought patterns. The similarity I accept for God and us is only logical thought. His reasons for his purposes are His alone. All of my logic fits history. Our difference is our individual concepts of human specialness. You keep minimizing the gap from other animals that preceded us and I see it very much larger than you do. Our consciousness is totally unexplained and really should be viewed as unexpected. Since only a designing mind could have produced this result you reject it.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID (re leaf-biting): You are having Miss Bee reaching a solution relating the two very separate events on one observation! No true scientist would make that obvious mistake. Nor would any rational human.
I’m pleased you have realized that Miss Bee was not a true scientist or a rational human. In my hypothetical scenario, she passed on her one observation, and when other bees tried the trick, it worked. If it hadn’t worked, my guess is that they wouldn’t have bothered any more. What’s your problem?
DAVID: Autonomous intelligence comes from the appearance of automatic but reasonable reactions.
Try telling that to yourself when you defend your belief in free will. “Autonomous” means free to control itself; “automatic” means not free to control itself.
dhw: I just can’t understand why your all-powerful God would create 100-200 billion galaxies just for the sake of producing H. sapiens. The same problem as with all those different extinct life forms etc. over 3.X thousand million years, when he only wanted one. […]
DAVID: I don't need to know his reasoning, if I accept history as the evidence for his choice, I know His choice, and guesses as to his possible reasons are just guesses. [...]
dhw: And so once again you slide over the illogical COMBINATION of your rigid beliefs! Which choice do you “know”? We both believe evolution happened, and so if God exists, evolution was his choice of method to fulfil whatever may have been his purpose. You do not “know” that 1) H. sapiens was his purpose, or 2) that he directly designed every life form, natural wonder etc., or 3) that he is all-powerful, always in control, and can do whatever he wants in any way that he wants. These three guesses of yours leave you with “no idea” how to fit them together with the history of evolution, and so you would prefer to stop reasoning, and to reject any alternatives to your three guesses because – more of your “logic” - they entail thought patterns similar to ours although according to you he probably/possibly has thought patterns similar to ours.
DAVID: Again the dishonest distorted 'no idea' mantra. Any ideas would be unproven useless guesses.
The three ideas I have bolded and numbered above are unproven guesses. And you cannot even guess why your all-powerful God (guess no. 3) would directly design every non-human life form etc. (guess no, 2), although his only purpose was to design H. sapiens (guess no. 1). The distortion lies in your refusal to recognize that your theory is based on irreconcilable guesses. The only “fact” we agree on (some people reject it, though) is that life developed from single cells through a vast bush of diverse forms, culminating (so far) in humans.
DAVID: And the next distortion about similar thought patterns. The similarity I accept for God and us is only logical thought.
But you have no idea what logic could lie behind the combination of your three guesses above, so that’s not much help. And you persistently try to disown your own statement that “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought” – which is a perfectly reasonable proposal, since even you have proposed that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.
DAVID: His reasons for his purposes are His alone. All of my logic fits history. Our difference is our individual concepts of human specialness. You keep minimizing the gap from other animals that preceded us and I see it very much larger than you do. Our consciousness is totally unexplained and really should be viewed as unexpected. Since only a designing mind could have produced this result you reject it.
You accuse me of distortion, and then persistently run back to this distortion of your own. Once more, I have NEVER disputed the huge gap between our consciousness and that of other organisms, and I accept the logic of the design argument. I have even offered you two logical theistic theories of evolution (experimentation and new ideas) that allow for our specialness AND for the 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life. Please stop continually dodging the issue of your three irreconcilable guesses by shifting the focus to a disagreement you have manufactured.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, May 30, 2020, 21:14 (1636 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID (re leaf-biting): You are having Miss Bee reaching a solution relating the two very separate events on one observation! No true scientist would make that obvious mistake. Nor would any rational human.
dhw: I’m pleased you have realized that Miss Bee was not a true scientist or a rational human. In my hypothetical scenario, she passed on her one observation, and when other bees tried the trick, it worked. If it hadn’t worked, my guess is that they wouldn’t have bothered any more. What’s your problem?
Total irrationality. How can one make any observation of two disparate events and reach a conclusion of any connection? It requires multiple munchings and multiple early flowerings to realize the connectionality at the human level, much less the little bee level. Simply repeating your fairy tale is no real answer to my point, which means you have no answer.
DAVID: Autonomous intelligence comes from the appearance of automatic but reasonable reactions.dhw: Try telling that to yourself when you defend your belief in free will. “Autonomous” means free to control itself; “automatic” means not free to control itself.
Free will doesn't apply here.
dhw: I just can’t understand why your all-powerful God would create 100-200 billion galaxies just for the sake of producing H. sapiens. The same problem as with all those different extinct life forms etc. over 3.X thousand million years, when he only wanted one. […]DAVID: I don't need to know his reasoning, if I accept history as the evidence for his choice, I know His choice, and guesses as to his possible reasons are just guesses. [...]
dhw: And so once again you slide over the illogical COMBINATION of your rigid beliefs! Which choice do you “know”? We both believe evolution happened, and so if God exists, evolution was his choice of method to fulfil whatever may have been his purpose. You do not “know” that 1) H. sapiens was his purpose, or 2) that he directly designed every life form, natural wonder etc., or 3) that he is all-powerful, always in control, and can do whatever he wants in any way that he wants. These three guesses of yours leave you with “no idea” how to fit them together with the history of evolution, and so you would prefer to stop reasoning, and to reject any alternatives to your three guesses because – more of your “logic” - they entail thought patterns similar to ours although according to you he probably/possibly has thought patterns similar to ours.
DAVID: Again the dishonest distorted 'no idea' mantra. Any ideas would be unproven useless guesses.
dhw: The three ideas I have bolded and numbered above are unproven guesses. And you cannot even guess why your all-powerful God (guess no. 3) would directly design every non-human life form etc. (guess no, 2), although his only purpose was to design H. sapiens (guess no. 1). The distortion lies in your refusal to recognize that your theory is based on irreconcilable guesses. The only “fact” we agree on (some people reject it, though) is that life developed from single cells through a vast bush of diverse forms, culminating (so far) in humans.
You have never fully explained why you think parts of my theory don't stick together. If I understood your reasoning perhaps we can have a real debate.
DAVID: And the next distortion about similar thought patterns. The similarity I accept for God and us is only logical thought.dhw: But you have no idea what logic could lie behind the combination of your three guesses above, so that’s not much help. And you persistently try to disown your own statement that “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought” – which is a perfectly reasonable proposal, since even you have proposed that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.
What I disowned out of context is beside the point. He may have similar patterns of thought, but that doesn't tell us His reasoning for his goal, the main issue.
DAVID: His reasons for his purposes are His alone. All of my logic fits history. Our difference is our individual concepts of human specialness. You keep minimizing the gap from other animals that preceded us and I see it very much larger than you do. Our consciousness is totally unexplained and really should be viewed as unexpected. Since only a designing mind could have produced this result you reject it.dhw: You accuse me of distortion, and then persistently run back to this distortion of your own. Once more, I have NEVER disputed the huge gap between our consciousness and that of other organisms, and I accept the logic of the design argument. I have even offered you two logical theistic theories of evolution (experimentation and new ideas) that allow for our specialness AND for the 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life. Please stop continually dodging the issue of your three irreconcilable guesses by shifting the focus to a disagreement you have manufactured.
Once again , I don't see them as irreconcilable, which you offer without a thorough discussion of you problems with it.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID (re leaf-biting): You are having Miss Bee reaching a solution relating the two very separate events on one observation! No true scientist would make that obvious mistake. Nor would any rational human.
dhw: I’m pleased you have realized that Miss Bee was not a true scientist or a rational human. In my hypothetical scenario, she passed on her one observation, and when other bees tried the trick, it worked. If it hadn’t worked, my guess is that they wouldn’t have bothered any more. What’s your problem?
DAVID: Total irrationality. How can one make any observation of two disparate events and reach a conclusion of any connection? It requires multiple munchings and multiple early flowerings to realize the connectionality at the human level, much less the little bee level. Simply repeating your fairy tale is no real answer to my point, which means you have no answer.
Initially it’s not a conclusion! It’s just a one-off observation of possible cause and effect. So then it’s repeated, and if it continues to work, it becomes an established strategy. The same process would apply to the origin of thousands of other “natural wonders”, in which organisms establish strategies, lifestyles, survival techniques – think of symbiosis - no doubt often from chance beginnings. So now let’s hear your explanation as to how bees got started on the trick.
DAVID: Autonomous intelligence comes from the appearance of automatic but reasonable reactions.
dhw: Try telling that to yourself when you defend your belief in free will. “Autonomous” means free to control itself; “automatic” means not free to control itself.
DAVID: Free will doesn't apply here.
Free will shows that autonomous intelligence does not necessarily come from the appearance of “automatic but reasonable reactions”. To use your own favourite method of dismissing theories other than your own: you have no proof for your belief, though you state it as if it were a fact.
dhw: The three ideas I have bolded and numbered above are unproven guesses. And you cannot even guess why your all-powerful God (guess no. 3) would directly design every non-human life form etc. (guess no, 2), although his only purpose was to design H. sapiens (guess no. 1). The distortion lies in your refusal to recognize that your theory is based on irreconcilable guesses. The only “fact” we agree on (some people reject it, though) is that life developed from single cells through a vast bush of diverse forms, culminating (so far) in humans.
DAVID: You have never fully explained why you think parts of my theory don't stick together. If I understood your reasoning perhaps we can have a real debate.
I'm surprised, but here we go again. Please bear in mind that individually, your three guesses make perfect sense. However, if your God’s one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and if he had the power to design H. sapiens any way he wished, there is no conceivable reason why he would first have directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, lifestyles, econiches, strategies and natural wonders which have no conceivable connection to humans.
You cannot think of a reason yourself, and so you say that any reason for linking your guesses would be a guess, God thinks logically like us but our human logic can’t follow his logic, and any attempt to replace any of your three guesses entails “humanizing” your God, although your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours. I hope this makes it clear why I find your theory illogical, and at the same time why I find your objections to my alternatives equally illogical.
DAVID: And the next distortion about similar thought patterns. The similarity I accept for God and us is only logical thought.
dhw: But you have no idea what logic could lie behind the combination of your three guesses above, so that’s not much help. And you persistently try to disown your own statement that “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought” – which is a perfectly reasonable proposal, since even you have proposed that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.
DAVID: What I disowned out of context is beside the point. He may have similar patterns of thought, but that doesn't tell us His reasoning for his goal, the main issue.
There is no “out of context”. Either God may have thought patterns similar to ours or he may not, and you have just repeated that he may! We do not “know” any of your three guesses, including his goal, and that is why I have proposed different theistic theories to explain the only fact we have - single cells developed into a vast variety of largely extinct life forms etc., the latest of which is H. sapiens. These theories include two that allow for the specialness of H. sapiens.
DAVID: Our difference is our individual concepts of human specialness.
dhw: You accuse me of distortion, and then persistently run back to this distortion of your own. Once more, I have NEVER disputed the huge gap between our consciousness and that of other organisms, and I accept the logic of the design argument.
I trust we’ve seen the end of this line of attack.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, May 31, 2020, 15:49 (1635 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Total irrationality. How can one make any observation of two disparate events and reach a conclusion of any connection? It requires multiple munchings and multiple early flowerings to realize the connectionality at the human level, much less the little bee level. Simply repeating your fairy tale is no real answer to my point, which means you have no answer.
dhw: Initially it’s not a conclusion! It’s just a one-off observation of possible cause and effect. So then it’s repeated, and if it continues to work, it becomes an established strategy. The same process would apply to the origin of thousands of other “natural wonders”, in which organisms establish strategies, lifestyles, survival techniques – think of symbiosis - no doubt often from chance beginnings.
Again, no answer to the problem of recognition of the relationship of two separated-in-time events. It requires multiple observations It requires mental analysis of correlation, then reaching a conclusion. You have the bee brain capable of that analysis. I don't think so. At least finally you recognize the need for repetition of observations.
dhw: So now let’s hear your explanation as to how bees got started on the trick.
Surprise, God helped. As He did with the wiggle dances.
DAVID: Autonomous intelligence comes from the appearance of automatic but reasonable reactions.dhw: The three ideas I have bolded and numbered above are unproven guesses. And you cannot even guess why your all-powerful God (guess no. 3) would directly design every non-human life form etc. (guess no, 2), although his only purpose was to design H. sapiens (guess no. 1). The distortion lies in your refusal to recognize that your theory is based on irreconcilable guesses. The only “fact” we agree on (some people reject it, though) is that life developed from single cells through a vast bush of diverse forms, culminating (so far) in humans.
DAVID: You have never fully explained why you think parts of my theory don't stick together. If I understood your reasoning perhaps we can have a real debate.
dhw: I'm surprised, but here we go again. Please bear in mind that individually, your three guesses make perfect sense. However, if your God’s one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and if he had the power to design H. sapiens any way he wished, there is no conceivable reason why he would first have directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, lifestyles, econiches, strategies and natural wonders which have no conceivable connection to humans.
Same old non-explanation. You continually totally ignore my start point: God is in charge of history, which then tells us what He did and what His choice was. He evolved humans from bacteria. With God in charge, this conclusion is not illogical. Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.
dhw: You cannot think of a reason yourself, and so you say that any reason for linking your guesses would be a guess, God thinks logically like us but our human logic can’t follow his logic, and any attempt to replace any of your three guesses entails “humanizing” your God, although your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours.
Again, your illogical quest for God's reasonings. I don't try as explained above, using history as a guide.
DAVID: What I disowned out of context is beside the point. He may have similar patterns of thought, but that doesn't tell us His reasoning for his goal, the main issue.dhw: There is no “out of context”. Either God may have thought patterns similar to ours or he may not, and you have just repeated that he may! We do not “know” any of your three guesses, including his goal, and that is why I have proposed different theistic theories to explain the only fact we have - single cells developed into a vast variety of largely extinct life forms etc., the latest of which is H. sapiens. These theories include two that allow for the specialness of H. sapiens.
Same old problem in your analysis of God. You want reasons that do not exist. No theories are required if one simply takes known history as a record of God's actions. That is all I have done, and you object and call it illogical, because it doesn't satisfy your underlying desire to know God's reasoning. Recognize we cannot know it. And previously over 12 years all possibilities have been brought up. Want a rehash? Will that make you less ore more agnostic?
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID ( re bees eating leaves): Total irrationality. How can one make any observation of two disparate events and reach a conclusion of any connection? It requires multiple munchings and multiple early flowerings to realize the connectionality at the human level, much less the little bee level. Simply repeating your fairy tale is no real answer to my point, which means you have no answer.
dhw: Initially it’s not a conclusion! It’s just a one-off observation of possible cause and effect. So then it’s repeated, and if it continues to work, it becomes an established strategy. The same process would apply to the origin of thousands of other “natural wonders”, in which organisms establish strategies, lifestyles, survival techniques – think of symbiosis - no doubt often from chance beginnings.
DAVID: Again, no answer to the problem of recognition of the relationship of two separated-in-time events. It requires multiple observations It requires mental analysis of correlation, then reaching a conclusion. You have the bee brain capable of that analysis. I don't think so. At least finally you recognize the need for repetition of observations.
My proposal right from the start has been a one-off observation by Miss Bee who points it out to other bees, and they try it too (= repetition). It works, and so it becomes an established strategy. There is no “problem”, and as I've said above (no comment from you), the process must have been repeated thousand and thousands of times over.
dhw: So now let’s hear your explanation as to how bees got started on the trick.
DAVID: Surprise, God helped. As He did with the wiggle dances.
God’s help apparently comes in the form of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for leaf-biting and for wiggle-dancing, or a direct dabble with the bee’s genome, somehow inserting each programme as the idea occurs to him. (Or has he planned his dabbles right from the start?) And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.
DAVID: You have never fully explained why you think parts of my theory don't stick together. If I understood your reasoning perhaps we can have a real debate.
dhw: I'm surprised, but here we go again. Please bear in mind that individually, your three guesses make perfect sense. However, if your God’s one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and if he had the power to design H. sapiens any way he wished, there is no conceivable reason why he would first have directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, lifestyles, econiches, strategies and natural wonders which have no conceivable connection to humans.
DAVID: Same old non-explanation. You continually totally ignore my start point: God is in charge of history, which then tells us what He did and what His choice was. He evolved humans from bacteria. With God in charge, this conclusion is not illogical.
No, it's not illogical. But as I keep saying (see above), individually your guesses make sense. It is the COMBINATION that doesn’t, and so as usual you now ignore the fact that he also evolved (for you = specially designed) millions of non-human and now extinct life forms etc., and these do not fit in with your theory that his one and only purpose was to evolve (=specially design) H. sapiens, and he had the power to do it any way he wanted.
DAVID: Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.
The above has nothing to do with religion. You have no idea why he would have directly designed all the non-human life forms and econiches if his one and only purpose was to design the human form and its econiches, and if he could have done it any way he wished because he is always in control. Your all-powerful view of God may well be “contaminated” by religion, but you reject any explanation of the history which denies him absolute control, because such a God is not “your” God.
The rest of your post is a continuation of your efforts to avoid facing up to the glaring weakness in your theory, which is the combination of three irreconcilable guesses.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, June 01, 2020, 18:20 (1634 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Again, no answer to the problem of recognition of the relationship of two separated-in-time events. It requires multiple observations It requires mental analysis of correlation, then reaching a conclusion. You have the bee brain capable of that analysis. I don't think so. At least finally you recognize the need for repetition of observations.
dhw: My proposal right from the start has been a one-off observation by Miss Bee who points it out to other bees, and they try it too (= repetition). It works, and so it becomes an established strategy. There is no “problem”, and as I've said above (no comment from you), the process must have been repeated thousand and thousands of times over.
One observation would not prove it to a human yet to a bee. Your story is a non-answer to the problem of mentally connecting two different events some time apart. Common sense should tell you that multiple observations are necessary to make the connection
dhw: So now let’s hear your explanation as to how bees got started on the trick.DAVID: Surprise, God helped. As He did with the wiggle dances.
dhw: God’s help apparently comes in the form of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for leaf-biting and for wiggle-dancing, or a direct dabble with the bee’s genome, somehow inserting each programme as the idea occurs to him. (Or has he planned his dabbles right from the start?) And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.
Yes, the leaf-biting--sooner-flowering connection requires multiple observations over multiple times.
DAVID: You have never fully explained why you think parts of my theory don't stick together. If I understood your reasoning perhaps we can have a real debate.dhw: I'm surprised, but here we go again. Please bear in mind that individually, your three guesses make perfect sense. However, if your God’s one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and if he had the power to design H. sapiens any way he wished, there is no conceivable reason why he would first have directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, lifestyles, econiches, strategies and natural wonders which have no conceivable connection to humans.
DAVID: Same old non-explanation. You continually totally ignore my start point: God is in charge of history, which then tells us what He did and what His choice was. He evolved humans from bacteria. With God in charge, this conclusion is not illogical.
dhw: No, it's not illogical. But as I keep saying (see above), individually your guesses make sense. It is the COMBINATION that doesn’t, and so as usual you now ignore the fact that he also evolved (for you = specially designed) millions of non-human and now extinct life forms etc., and these do not fit in with your theory that his one and only purpose was to evolve (=specially design) H. sapiens, and he had the power to do it any way he wanted.
DAVID: Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.
dhw: The above has nothing to do with religion. You have no idea why he would have directly designed all the non-human life forms and econiches if his one and only purpose was to design the human form and its econiches, and if he could have done it any way he wished because he is always in control. Your all-powerful view of God may well be “contaminated” by religion, but you reject any explanation of the history which denies him absolute control, because such a God is not “your” God.
Same old answer from you. You agree God has the right to chose his methodology, and then deny Him the right to choose it. The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.
Back to David's theory of evolution: bee activity
by David Turell , Monday, June 01, 2020, 19:24 (1634 days ago) @ David Turell
Note this bee observation: only two species of bubblebees do this. This a specialized instinct:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200526134651.htm
In these experiments, the researchers again observed that hungry bumblebees with insufficient pollen supplies frequently damaged the leaves of non-blooming plants. But the damaging behaviour was consistently reduced when the researchers made more flowers available to the bees.
Furthermore, it was not only captive-bred bumblebees from the researchers' experimental colonies that damaged plant leaves. The investigators also observed wild bees from at least two additional bumblebee species biting the leaves of plants in their experimental plots. Other pollinating insects, such as honeybees, did not exhibit such behaviour, however: they seemed to ignore the non-flowering plants entirely, despite being frequent visitors to nearby patches of flowering plants.
Comment: Why only bumblebees? Do only they have the humanized-style brains to figure this out?
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: My proposal right from the start has been a one-off observation by Miss Bee who points it out to other bees, and they try it too (= repetition). It works, and so it becomes an established strategy. There is no “problem”, and as I've said above (no comment from you), the process must have been repeated thousands and thousands of times over.
DAVID: One observation would not prove it to a human yet to a bee. Your story is a non-answer to the problem of mentally connecting two different events some time apart. Common sense should tell you that multiple observations are necessary to make the connection.
Why are you talking about “proof”? Bees don’t set out to prove a theory! The trick had to start somewhere with an observation. And of course it is then repeated. And if it works, it becomes an established strategy. I really don’t know what you yourself are trying to prove, except that even though all organisms must be able to observe causes and effects if they are to survive, you don’t believe a bee could make such an observation and so your God must have stepped in (“God helped. As he did with the wiggle dances”) to plant a leaf-biting programme in its genome!
dhw: And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.
DAVID: Yes, the leaf-biting--sooner-flowering connection requires multiple observations over multiple times.
What is this “yes”? We’ve dealt with repetitions, and I am now challenging your own theory, which I find excruciatingly difficult to take seriously. And I have no idea why you should dismiss my alternative theistic proposal (bolded above).
The bumblebee article deals with the same “trick”.
DAVID: Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.
dhw: The above has nothing to do with religion. You have no idea why he would have directly designed all the non-human life forms and econiches if his one and only purpose was to design the human form and its econiches, and if he could have done it any way he wished because he is always in control. Your all-powerful view of God may well be “contaminated” by religion, but you reject any explanation of the history which denies him absolute control, because such a God is not “your” God.
DAVID: Same old answer from you. You agree God has the right to chose his methodology, and then deny Him the right to choose it.
Same old diversionary tactic. Of course your all-powerful God has the right to choose his methodology, but there is no logic in YOUR argument that his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and in order to do so he decided not to create H. sapiens until he had created millions of non-human life forms etc. I am attempting to deny you the right to impose a choice of method on your God which has no conceivable logical link to the choice of purpose you impose on him.
DAVID: The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.
Again avoiding the illogicality of your proposed purpose and your proposed method of achieving that purpose. And as usual ignoring the fact that I have offered you alternative explanations, including two which cater for your proposed purpose. What do you mean by a “legitimate” purpose? Are you in a position to tell us what God is allowed to have as his purpose?!
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 02, 2020, 14:29 (1633 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.
No I definitely think they do not have that capacity
DAVID: Yes, the leaf-biting--sooner-flowering connection requires multiple observations over multiple times.dhw: What is this “yes”? We’ve dealt with repetitions, and I am now challenging your own theory, which I find excruciatingly difficult to take seriously. And I have no idea why you should dismiss my alternative theistic proposal (bolded above).
You have a perfect right to to think bees are very intelligent, because God made them that way. Once again you scurry back to proposing something from a God you don't believe in.
dhw: The bumblebee article deals with the same “trick”.
They are the only bees doing the trick. Why don't the others have it? Or was your version of God only interested in bumblebees?
DAVID: Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.dhw: The above has nothing to do with religion. You have no idea why he would have directly designed all the non-human life forms and econiches if his one and only purpose was to design the human form and its econiches, and if he could have done it any way he wished because he is always in control. Your all-powerful view of God may well be “contaminated” by religion, but you reject any explanation of the history which denies him absolute control, because such a God is not “your” God.
DAVID: Same old answer from you. You agree God has the right to chose his methodology, and then deny Him the right to choose it.
dhw: Same old diversionary tactic. Of course your all-powerful God has the right to choose his methodology, but there is no logic in YOUR argument that his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and in order to do so he decided not to create H. sapiens until he had created millions of non-human life forms etc. I am attempting to deny you the right to impose a choice of method on your God which has no conceivable logical link to the choice of purpose you impose on him.
Same old answer. Why can't God chose evolution as His method of creation? That is what happened. Of course there is 'no logical link' to humans appearing. That is why I say we are very improbable!
DAVID: The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.dhw: Again avoiding the illogicality of your proposed purpose and your proposed method of achieving that purpose. And as usual ignoring the fact that I have offered you alternative explanations, including two which cater for your proposed purpose. What do you mean by a “legitimate” purpose? Are you in a position to tell us what God is allowed to have as his purpose?!
I don't 'allow God'. The logic follows from the The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes. We are very improbably here. Based on Darwin theory we shouldn't be here.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.
DAVID: No I definitely think they do not have that capacity.
And so you believe your God twiddled the genomes of every organism in life’s history before it came up with every one of its strategies, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. – and all for the sole purpose of twiddling his way to H. sapiens!
DAVID: Yes, the leaf-biting--sooner-flowering connection requires multiple observations over multiple times.
dhw: What is this “yes”? We’ve dealt with repetitions, and I am now challenging your own theory, which I find excruciatingly difficult to take seriously. And I have no idea why you should dismiss my alternative theistic proposal (bolded above).
DAVID: You have a perfect right to to think bees are very intelligent, because God made them that way. Once again you scurry back to proposing something from a God you don't believe in.
I didn’t say “very” intelligent, and there is no scurrying. The question is simply whether organisms are intelligent enough to do their own observing, decision-making and communicating. You say they are not, and so your God has to do it all for them. I see no reason why your God should not have given them the intelligence to do it themselves. The issue is organismal intelligence, not the existence of God.
dhw: The bumblebee article deals with the same “trick”.
DAVID: They are the only bees doing the trick. Why don't the others have it? Or was your version of God only interested in bumblebees?
It is YOU who should answer that question! My version of God has him leaving organisms to work out their own strategies! Bumblebees do their own thing, and other bees do their own thing. So was your version of God only interested in bumblebees?
DAVID: Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.
dhw: The above has nothing to do with religion. You have no idea why he would have directly designed all the non-human life forms and econiches if his one and only purpose was to design the human form and its econiches, and if he could have done it any way he wished because he is always in control. Your all-powerful view of God may well be “contaminated” by religion, but you reject any explanation of the history which denies him absolute control, because such a God is not “your” God. […]
DAVID: Same old answer. Why can't God chose evolution as His method of creation? That is what happened. Of course there is 'no logical link' to humans appearing. That is why I say we are very improbable!
Same old diversionary tactic. Of course God, if he exists, chose evolution as His method of creation. But the issue - as you well know but are determined to dodge – is not our improbability but why, if his sole aim was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he liked, he proceeded to design millions of non-human life forms, econiches, strategies etc. beforehand. Please, please, stop this dodging!
DAVID: The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.
dhw: Again avoiding the illogicality of your proposed purpose and your proposed method of achieving that purpose. And as usual ignoring the fact that I have offered you alternative explanations, including two which cater for your proposed purpose. What do you mean by a “legitimate” purpose? Are you in a position to tell us what God is allowed to have as his purpose?!
DAVID: I don't 'allow God'. The logic follows from the The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes. We are very improbably here. Based on Darwin theory we shouldn't be here.
Again you simply ignore the fact that I offer you logical explanations that cater for your proposed purpose, and you have also ignored my question, which was what you meant by “legitimate”. You accused me of not identifying a “legitimate” purpose. In order to explain the vast and varied history of life’s bush, including everything that existed before us, I have proposed that your God might have enjoyed creating or allowing organisms to create a vast and varied history. Much as a painter might enjoy his own paintings (the image you once offered).You are clearly implying that your God’s enjoyment of his own work (direct or indirect) is not a “legitimate” purpose. How do you know?
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 03, 2020, 19:17 (1632 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.
DAVID: No I definitely think they do not have that capacity.
DAVID: You have a perfect right to to think bees are very intelligent, because God made them that way. Once again you scurry back to proposing something from a God you don't believe in.
dhw: I didn’t say “very” intelligent, and there is no scurrying. The question is simply whether organisms are intelligent enough to do their own observing, decision-making and communicating. You say they are not, and so your God has to do it all for them. I see no reason why your God should not have given them the intelligence to do it themselves. The issue is organismal intelligence, not the existence of God.
Once again you have God giving them intelligence. That is a non-answer as to how it happens naturally .
DAVID: Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.
dhw: The above has nothing to do with religion. You have no idea why he would have directly designed all the non-human life forms and econiches if his one and only purpose was to design the human form and its econiches, and if he could have done it any way he wished because he is always in control. Your all-powerful view of God may well be “contaminated” by religion, but you reject any explanation of the history which denies him absolute control, because such a God is not “your” God. […]
DAVID: Same old answer. Why can't God chose evolution as His method of creation? That is what happened. Of course there is 'no logical link' to humans appearing. That is why I say we are very improbable!
dhw: Same old diversionary tactic. Of course God, if he exists, chose evolution as His method of creation. But the issue - as you well know but are determined to dodge – is not our improbability but why, if his sole aim was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he liked, he proceeded to design millions of non-human life forms, econiches, strategies etc. beforehand. Please, please, stop this dodging!
Same old dodge from you. You allow Him to evolve life and then complain about His evolving humans over the time required. More than weird logic.
DAVID: The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.dhw: Again avoiding the illogicality of your proposed purpose and your proposed method of achieving that purpose. And as usual ignoring the fact that I have offered you alternative explanations, including two which cater for your proposed purpose. What do you mean by a “legitimate” purpose? Are you in a position to tell us what God is allowed to have as his purpose?!
DAVID: I don't 'allow God'. The logic follows from the The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes. We are very improbably here. Based on Darwin theory we shouldn't be here.
dhw: Again you simply ignore the fact that I offer you logical explanations that cater for your proposed purpose, and you have also ignored my question, which was what you meant by “legitimate”. You accused me of not identifying a “legitimate” purpose. In order to explain the vast and varied history of life’s bush, including everything that existed before us, I have proposed that your God might have enjoyed creating or allowing organisms to create a vast and varied history. Much as a painter might enjoy his own paintings (the image you once offered).You are clearly implying that your God’s enjoyment of his own work (direct or indirect) is not a “legitimate” purpose. How do you know?
Your enjoyments for God are simply going back to humanizing Him. Yes, He might have enjoyed all of evolutionary creations, but that is a side issue to his purpose of eventually creating humans. Our difference still boils down to God's purpose and you suggest He had none. Even though we are so different with consciousness, therefore unexplained.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.[…]
DAVID: Once again you have God giving them intelligence. That is a non-answer as to how it happens naturally.
Why is it not natural for an intelligent organism to observe, learn and communicate?
DAVID: Why can't God chose evolution as His method of creation? That is what happened. Of course there is 'no logical link' to humans appearing. That is why I say we are very improbable!
dhw: Same old diversionary tactic. Of course God, if he exists, chose evolution as His method of creation. But the issue - as you well know but are determined to dodge – is not our improbability but why, if his sole aim was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he liked, he proceeded to design millions of non-human life forms, econiches, strategies etc. beforehand. Please, please, stop this dodging!
DAVID: Same old dodge from you. You allow Him to evolve life and then complain about His evolving humans over the time required. More than weird logic.
I complain about your making him specially design millions of extinct non-human life forms etc. when his sole purpose was to specially design H. sapiens. Stop dodging!
DAVID: The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.
dhw: You are clearly implying that your God’s enjoyment of his own work (direct or indirect) is not a “legitimate” purpose. How do you know?
DAVID: Your enjoyments for God are simply going back to humanizing Him. Yes, He might have enjoyed all of evolutionary creations, but that is a side issue to his purpose of eventually creating humans. Our difference still boils down to God's purpose and you suggest He had none. Even though we are so different with consciousness, therefore unexplained.
“Humanizing” is no argument, because there is no reason to suppose that he does not have thought patterns similar to our own, as you have pointed out yourself. I absolutely reject your latest straw man – that I propose a God without a purpose. If he exists, then of course he must have had a purpose in creating life. I have offered you two theistic explanations for the history of life which allow for your own view of his purpose. I have offered other explanations allowing for the overall purpose of an infinitely varied spectacle for him to watch and even dabble in if he feels like it. You deliberately ignore these and cling to Adler (who apparently doesn’t even address your theory of evolution) in order to avoid facing the illogicality of the theory bolded above.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, June 04, 2020, 20:16 (1631 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.[…]
DAVID: Once again you have God giving them intelligence. That is a non-answer as to how it happens naturally.
dhw: Why is it not natural for an intelligent organism to observe, learn and communicate?
They must have the mental power of an understood correlation of separate events. Why do you know they have that?
DAVID: Why can't God chose evolution as His method of creation? That is what happened. Of course there is 'no logical link' to humans appearing. That is why I say we are very improbable!
dhw: Same old diversionary tactic. Of course God, if he exists, chose evolution as His method of creation. But the issue - as you well know but are determined to dodge – is not our improbability but why, if his sole aim was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he liked, he proceeded to design millions of non-human life forms, econiches, strategies etc. beforehand. Please, please, stop this dodging!
DAVID: Same old dodge from you. You allow Him to evolve life and then complain about His evolving humans over the time required. More than weird logic.
dhw: I complain about your making him specially design millions of extinct non-human life forms etc. when his sole purpose was to specially design H. sapiens. Stop dodging!
Total non-sequitur. You have granted his right to evolve life and then complain about it!
DAVID: The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.dhw: You are clearly implying that your God’s enjoyment of his own work (direct or indirect) is not a “legitimate” purpose. How do you know?
DAVID: Your enjoyments for God are simply going back to humanizing Him. Yes, He might have enjoyed all of evolutionary creations, but that is a side issue to his purpose of eventually creating humans. Our difference still boils down to God's purpose and you suggest He had none. Even though we are so different with consciousness, therefore unexplained.
dhw: “Humanizing” is no argument, because there is no reason to suppose that he does not have thought patterns similar to our own, as you have pointed out yourself. I absolutely reject your latest straw man – that I propose a God without a purpose. If he exists, then of course he must have had a purpose in creating life. I have offered you two theistic explanations for the history of life which allow for your own view of his purpose. I have offered other explanations allowing for the overall purpose of an infinitely varied spectacle for him to watch and even dabble in if he feels like it. You deliberately ignore these and cling to Adler (who apparently doesn’t even address your theory of evolution) in order to avoid facing the illogicality of the theory bolded above.
Once again what you have done is reproduce humanized reasons. Adler's point is not what you imply, which is no defense to his argument about our unexplained difference. You cannot accept the difference argument as it destroys your position about God's purpose. As for Adler, he specifically thought God did the speciation:
https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j17_2/j17_2_80-82.pdf
Adler examines in great detail the question of how many ‘species’ exist so he can answer the question ‘… how many creative acts of God are required to explain the evolutionary jumps?… Adler’s …view, which he considers “almost completely demonstrated”, is …Within a species, changes have occurred, but each species itself is an fixed type—immutable in its essence, and coming into being only by an act of God. Adler suspects that each species was created in several different types, underived from each other—for example, the separate creation of flowering and non-flowering plants.
I'll stick with Adler. The rest of the article describes Adler's view of Darwinism. You won't like it. But it is an honest appraisal in that it lacks real science.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID (re cicadas): Totally unexplained as an instinctual behavior. The bugs did not teach themselves to do this.
dhw: Are you suggesting that your God, whose one and only aim was to directly design H. sapiens, stepped in to teach one particular form of cicada to spend 13-17 years underground? Or did he perhaps preprogramme the cicadas and their cycles 3.8 billion years ago as an integral step on the way to fulfilling his sole purpose of designing H. sapiens?
DAVID: Since it is very difficult to imagine a set of circumstances to force or induce cicadas into this pattern of life, God may well have had a role. Just how is only guesswork, which must include my proposals as to how God works His intentions. The insects are just another part of the necessary bush of life created by God's method of evolution.
You have only ever offered preprogramming or personal dabbling as your God’s “role”, and I eagerly await your explanation for the role of the cicadas in fulfilling your God’s one and only intention of producing H. sapiens. God’s method of evolution provided bushes of life necessary for every life form that ever existed, long, long before H. sapiens arrived.
dhw: And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.[…]
DAVID: Once again you have God giving them intelligence. That is a non-answer as to how it happens naturally.
dhw: Why is it not natural for an intelligent organism to observe, learn and communicate?
DAVID: They must have the mental power of an understood correlation of separate events. Why do you know they have that?
How do you "know" they DON'T? Intelligence is manifested every time they initiate a strategy, lifestyle, response to changing conditions, and their behaviour indicates that they are able to observe, learn and communicate. How do you "know" that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every single strategy, lifestyle, response?
DAVID: Same old dodge from you. You allow Him to evolve life and then complain about His evolving humans over the time required. More than weird logic.
dhw: I complain about your making him specially design millions of extinct non-human life forms etc. when his sole purpose was to specially design H. sapiens. Stop dodging!
DAVID: Total non-sequitur. You have granted his right to evolve life and then complain about it!
Repeat: Of course if he exists he evolved life. My complaint is your insistence that although he had only one purpose, to specially design H. sapiens, and could have done it any way he chose, he specially designed millions of now extinct non-human life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders before even starting to design the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: The primary disagreement is you don't identify a legitimate purpose for God and I do.
dhw: […] I have offered you two theistic explanations for the history of life which allow for your own view of his purpose. I have offered other explanations allowing for the overall purpose of an infinitely varied spectacle for him to watch and even dabble in if he feels like it. You deliberately ignore these and cling to Adler (who apparently doesn’t even address your theory of evolution) in order to avoid facing the illogicality of the theory bolded above.
DAVID: Once again what you have done is reproduce humanized reasons.
You accused me of conjuring up a God without a purpose (bolded). Now you switch to the silly “humanized” argument already obliterated by your own agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours.
DAVID: You cannot accept the difference argument as it destroys your position about God's purpose.
I have always accepted the difference argument, and have offered you two theistic explanations of evolution that allow for your theory of God’s purpose. Please stop all this dodging!
DAVID: As for Adler, he specifically thought God did the speciation:[…]
No problem. Does Adler also explain why God specifically designed all the different extinct species plus all the different extinct econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. even though in his omnipotence his one and only purpose was to specifically design H. sapiens? Even if he does, all this discussion about Adler is irrelevant. My discussion is with you, not with him, and if you can’t find an explanation for this part of your theory, then your faith in Adler is not going to help you.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Friday, June 05, 2020, 20:03 (1630 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Since it is very difficult to imagine a set of circumstances to force or induce cicadas into this pattern of life, God may well have had a role. Just how is only guesswork, which must include my proposals as to how God works His intentions. The insects are just another part of the necessary bush of life created by God's method of evolution.
dhw: You have only ever offered preprogramming or personal dabbling as your God’s “role”, and I eagerly await your explanation for the role of the cicadas in fulfilling your God’s one and only intention of producing H. sapiens. God’s method of evolution provided bushes of life necessary for every life form that ever existed, long, long before H. sapiens arrived.
All I can offer is they play a role in their econiche.
dhw: Why is it not natural for an intelligent organism to observe, learn and communicate?DAVID: They must have the mental power of an understood correlation of separate events. Why do you know they have that?
dhw: How do you "know" they DON'T? Intelligence is manifested every time they initiate a strategy, lifestyle, response to changing conditions, and their behaviour indicates that they are able to observe, learn and communicate. How do you "know" that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every single strategy, lifestyle, response?
How do you know they weren't taught to do that? What we see mostly is instinctual activity. WSe do not kn ow how it developed.
DAVID: Total non-sequitur. You have granted his right to evolve life and then complain about it!dhw: Repeat: Of course if he exists he evolved life. My complaint is your insistence that although he had only one purpose, to specially design H. sapiens, and could have done it any way he chose, he specially designed millions of now extinct non-human life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders before even starting to design the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop dodging.
Same weird response. Evolving humans took the time it took. You grant the validity of the process and then complain about it.
DAVID: Once again what you have done is reproduce humanized reasons.dhw: You accused me of conjuring up a God without a purpose (bolded). Now you switch to the silly “humanized” argument already obliterated by your own agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours.
DAVID: You cannot accept the difference argument as it destroys your position about God's purpose.
dhw: I have always accepted the difference argument, and have offered you two theistic explanations of evolution that allow for your theory of God’s purpose. Please stop all this dodging!
DAVID: As for Adler, he specifically thought God did the speciation:[…]
dhw: No problem. Does Adler also explain why God specifically designed all the different extinct species plus all the different extinct econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. even though in his omnipotence his one and only purpose was to specifically design H. sapiens? Even if he does, all this discussion about Adler is irrelevant. My discussion is with you, not with him, and if you can’t find an explanation for this part of your theory, then your faith in Adler is not going to help you.
My explanations are satisfactory for me. Your objections are always complete non-sequiturs: you allow God can choose to evolve humans, but He shouldn't have done it the way history tells us it happened.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Since it is very difficult to imagine a set of circumstances to force or induce cicadas into this pattern of life, God may well have had a role. Just how is only guesswork, which must include my proposals as to how God works His intentions. The insects are just another part of the necessary bush of life created by God's method of evolution.
dhw: You have only ever offered preprogramming or personal dabbling as your God’s “role”, and I eagerly await your explanation for the role of the cicadas in fulfilling your God’s one and only intention of producing H. sapiens. God’s method of evolution provided bushes of life necessary for every life form that ever existed, long, long before H. sapiens arrived.
DAVID: All I can offer is they play a role in their econiche.
Yes of course they do. Every organism lives or lived in an econiche! I just wonder why your God created all those extinct organisms and econiches if all he wanted to create was H. sapiens and his econiches.
dhw: Why is it not natural for an intelligent organism to observe, learn and communicate?
DAVID: They must have the mental power of an understood correlation of separate events. Why do you know they have that?
dhw: How do you "know" they DON'T? Intelligence is manifested every time they initiate a strategy, lifestyle, response to changing conditions, and their behaviour indicates that they are able to observe, learn and communicate. How do you "know" that your God preprogrammed or dabbled every single strategy, lifestyle, response?
DAVID: How do you know they weren't taught to do that? What we see mostly is instinctual activity. We do not know how it developed.
And that is why we theorize. Thank you for the “mostly”. It is the non-instinctive, problem-solving, decision-making activities that suggest intelligence, and these also suggest that current strategies would have arisen from the same source. Your theory of evolution discounts intelligence altogether, which leaves you with no alternative to your God’s preprogramming or dabbling every life form etc. as bolded below.
dhw: My complaint is your insistence that although he had only one purpose, to specially design H. sapiens, and could have done it any way he chose, he specially designed millions of now extinct non-human life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders before even starting to design the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: Same weird response. Evolving humans took the time it took. You grant the validity of the process and then complain about it.
Evolving EVERY life form took the time it took! That does not explain why your God specially designed all those extinct life forms if the only life form he wanted to design was us. PLEASE STOP DODGING!
dhw: […] all this discussion about Adler is irrelevant. My discussion is with you, not with him, and if you can’t find an explanation for this part of your theory, then your faith in Adler is not going to help you.
DAVID: My explanations are satisfactory for me. Your objections are always complete non-sequiturs: you allow God can choose to evolve humans, but He shouldn't have done it the way history tells us it happened.
In your theory, your God could and did evolve (= directly design in your strange use of language) EVERY life form – not just humans. And so it does not make sense to claim that he only wanted to design humans!
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, June 06, 2020, 19:47 (1629 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You have only ever offered preprogramming or personal dabbling as your God’s “role”, and I eagerly await your explanation for the role of the cicadas in fulfilling your God’s one and only intention of producing H. sapiens. God’s method of evolution provided bushes of life necessary for every life form that ever existed, long, long before H. sapiens arrived.
DAVID: All I can offer is they play a role in their econiche.
dfhw: Yes of course they do. Every organism lives or lived in an econiche! I just wonder why your God created all those extinct organisms and econiches if all he wanted to create was H. sapiens and his econiches.
Same simple answer. God controls creation and history tells us He chose to evolve humans. I don't know how you can logically question that conclusion.
dhw: And that is why we theorize. Thank you for the “mostly”. It is the non-instinctive, problem-solving, decision-making activities that suggest intelligence, and these also suggest that current strategies would have arisen from the same source. Your theory of evolution discounts intelligence altogether, which leaves you with no alternative to your God’s preprogramming or dabbling every life form etc. as bolded below.dhw: My complaint is your insistence that although he had only one purpose, to specially design H. sapiens, and could have done it any way he chose, he specially designed millions of now extinct non-human life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders before even starting to design the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: Same weird response. Evolving humans took the time it took. You grant the validity of the process and then complain about it.
dhw: Evolving EVERY life form took the time it took! That does not explain why your God specially designed all those extinct life forms if the only life form he wanted to design was us. PLEASE STOP DODGING!
You are the dodging one! Remember history tells us life's evolution goes from fairly simple to very complex. Humans are the end point as very complex. Still the simpler ones had to come first. We did come out of modified apes.
dhw: […] all this discussion about Adler is irrelevant. My discussion is with you, not with him, and if you can’t find an explanation for this part of your theory, then your faith in Adler is not going to help you.DAVID: My explanations are satisfactory for me. Your objections are always complete non-sequiturs: you allow God can choose to evolve humans, but He shouldn't have done it the way history tells us it happened.
dhw: In your theory, your God could and did evolve (= directly design in your strange use of language) EVERY life form – not just humans. And so it does not make sense to claim that he only wanted to design humans!
What's wrong with recognizing Humans were His ultimate purpose and He used evolution of life to get there? The bold is a gross distortion of my meanings. He obviously had to design all prior stages until He got to humans. My usage of words is not strange. God is the necessary designer of the evolutionary process
Back to David's theory of evolution
This thread has become a master class in the evasion of a single question, but perhaps the sheer repetition will eventually produce an answer!
dhw: I just wonder why your God created all those extinct organisms and econiches if all he wanted to create was H. sapiens and his econiches.
DAVID: Same simple answer. God controls creation and history tells us He chose to evolve humans. I don't know how you can logically question that conclusion.
If God exists, history tells us that he chose evolution as the method of producing every single organism that ever lived. It does not tell us that he directly designed every single one, or that the only organism he wanted evolution to produce was H. sapiens.
DAVID: Same weird response. Evolving humans took the time it took. You grant the validity of the process and then complain about it.
dhw: Evolving EVERY life form took the time it took! That does not explain why your God specially designed all those extinct life forms if the only life form he wanted to design was us. PLEASE STOP DODGING!
DAVID: You are the dodging one! Remember history tells us life's evolution goes from fairly simple to very complex. Humans are the end point as very complex. Still the simpler ones had to come first. We did come out of modified apes.
But we did not come out of 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms, econiches, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc., all of which you insist were directly designed by your God, although the only thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens. There is no straight line from simple bacteria to very complex humans! And you have no idea why the line wiggled all over the place if your God was always in total control.
dhw: In your theory, your God could and did evolve (= directly design in your strange use of language) EVERY life form – not just humans. And so it does not make sense to claim that he only wanted to design humans!
DAVID: What's wrong with recognizing Humans were His ultimate purpose and He used evolution of life to get there?
You are claiming that he specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms in order to get to humans! I have offered you two theistic explanations of the non-human bush that do allow for the special purpose, but you keep ignoring them or trotting out your silly “humanization” objection.
DAVID: The bold is a gross distortion of my meanings. He obviously had to design all prior stages until He got to humans. My usage of words is not strange. God is the necessary designer of the evolutionary process
Yes, if he exists he designed the evolutionary process. But “evolution” does not mean the direct design of every product of the evolutionary process, and it does not mean that every organism that preceded humans constituted a necessary prior stage on the way from bacteria to humans.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, June 07, 2020, 21:15 (1628 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: This thread has become a master class in the evasion of a single question, but perhaps the sheer repetition will eventually produce an answer!
dhw: I just wonder why your God created all those extinct organisms and econiches if all he wanted to create was H. sapiens and his econiches.
DAVID: Same simple answer. God controls creation and history tells us He chose to evolve humans. I don't know how you can logically question that conclusion.
dhw: If God exists, history tells us that he chose evolution as the method of producing every single organism that ever lived. It does not tell us that he directly designed every single one, or that the only organism he wanted evolution to produce was H. sapiens.
Your response lists my true beliefs.
DAVID: Same weird response. Evolving humans took the time it took. You grant the validity of the process and then complain about it.dhw: Evolving EVERY life form took the time it took! That does not explain why your God specially designed all those extinct life forms if the only life form he wanted to design was us. PLEASE STOP DODGING!
DAVID: You are the dodging one! Remember history tells us life's evolution goes from fairly simple to very complex. Humans are the end point as very complex. Still the simpler ones had to come first. We did come out of modified apes.
dhw: But we did not come out of 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms, econiches, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc., all of which you insist were directly designed by your God, although the only thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens. There is no straight line from simple bacteria to very complex humans! And you have no idea why the line wiggled all over the place if your God was always in total control.
Since God in this discussion is in control, why can't He chose to wiggle all over the place?!
dhw: In your theory, your God could and did evolve (= directly design in your strange use of language) EVERY life form – not just humans. And so it does not make sense to claim that he only wanted to design humans!DAVID: What's wrong with recognizing Humans were His ultimate purpose and He used evolution of life to get there?
dhw: You are claiming that he specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms in order to get to humans! I have offered you two theistic explanations of the non-human bush that do allow for the special purpose, but you keep ignoring them or trotting out your silly “humanization” objection.
Don't object to your humanized explanations. They all list a human interest such as spectacle.
DAVID: The bold is a gross distortion of my meanings. He obviously had to design all prior stages until He got to humans. My usage of words is not strange. God is the necessary designer of the evolutionary processdhw: Yes, if he exists he designed the evolutionary process. But “evolution” does not mean the direct design of every product of the evolutionary process, and it does not mean that every organism that preceded humans constituted a necessary prior stage on the way from bacteria to humans.
How do you know what God thought as He evolved bacteria and everything else to get to us? My presumption is the history of evolution tells us what God did as designer of each step. Your approach in the bold is to accept that God only designed process that took care of itself.
Back to David's theory of evolution
Edited to avoid some of the repetition.
DAVID: God controls creation and history tells us He chose to evolve humans. I don't know how you can logically question that conclusion.
dhw: If God exists, history tells us that he chose evolution as the method of producing every single organism that ever lived. It does not tell us that he directly designed every single one, or that the only organism he wanted evolution to produce was H. sapiens.
DAVID: Your response lists my true beliefs.
Yes, they are beliefs and they are not history, though you constantly try to conflate the two.
DAVID: Remember history tells us life's evolution goes from fairly simple to very complex. Humans are the end point as very complex.
dhw: […] There is no straight line from simple bacteria to very complex humans! And you have no idea why the line wiggled all over the place if your God was always in total control.
DAVID: Since God in this discussion is in control, why can't He chose to wiggle all over the place?!
Of course he can. And that is why I suggest that he wanted evolution to wiggle all over the place. But wiggling all over the place is not consistent with having a single purpose (H. sapiens) in mind, plus the ability to fulfil that purpose any way he wished, plus the claim that he was always in control! Repeat: it suggests that he WANTED the vast variety of life forms, lifestyles, econiches, natural wonders etc. And that is not consistent with the theory that all he wanted was humans.
DAVID: What's wrong with recognizing Humans were His ultimate purpose and He used evolution of life to get there?
dhw: You are claiming that he specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms in order to get to humans! I have offered you two theistic explanations of the non-human bush that do allow for the special purpose, but you keep ignoring them or trotting out your silly “humanization” objection.
DAVID: Don't object to your humanized explanations. They all list a human interest such as spectacle.
Thank you for no longer objecting. I would suggest that a theory which posits God as being interested in all the products of his invention is actually more likely than a theory which posits that he deliberately designed all of these products although the only thing he really wanted to design was humans.
DAVID: He obviously had to design all prior stages until He got to humans. My usage of words is not strange. God is the necessary designer of the evolutionary process
dhw: Yes, if he exists he designed the evolutionary process. But “evolution” does not mean the direct design of every product of the evolutionary process, and it does not mean that every organism that preceded humans constituted a necessary prior stage on the way from bacteria to humans.
DAVID: How do you know what God thought as He evolved bacteria and everything else to get to us? My presumption is the history of evolution tells us what God did as designer of each step. Your approach in the bold is to accept that God only designed process that took care of itself.
It was you who specified that he designed the evolutionary process, and that allows for the theory that it “took care of itself”. You presume that he designed not only each step from bacteria to us, but also each life form, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc. that had nothing whatsoever to do with us. All of these constitute part of the “history of evolution”. Back we go to the question at the heart of this whole discussion: What do you “presume” was his purpose in directly designing all of them?
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, June 08, 2020, 18:26 (1627 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: If God exists, history tells us that he chose evolution as the method of producing every single organism that ever lived. It does not tell us that he directly designed every single one, or that the only organism he wanted evolution to produce was H. sapiens.
DAVID: Your response lists my true beliefs.
dhw: Yes, they are beliefs and they are not history, though you constantly try to conflate the two.
The two are already conflated in my belief that God runs evolution, and I see Him as viewing humans as His desired endpoint, but He fully had to desire to produce all that came beforehand as the necessary food supply. All carefully planned.
DAVID: Remember history tells us life's evolution goes from fairly simple to very complex. Humans are the end point as very complex.dhw: […] There is no straight line from simple bacteria to very complex humans! And you have no idea why the line wiggled all over the place if your God was always in total control.
DAVID: Since God in this discussion is in control, why can't He chose to wiggle all over the place?!
dhw: Of course he can. And that is why I suggest that he wanted evolution to wiggle all over the place. But wiggling all over the place is not consistent with having a single purpose (H. sapiens) in mind, plus the ability to fulfil that purpose any way he wished, plus the claim that he was always in control! Repeat: it suggests that he WANTED the vast variety of life forms, lifestyles, econiches, natural wonders etc. And that is not consistent with the theory that all he wanted was humans.
Again you have forgotten or ignore the obvious. Of course God knew the population we would achieve and the vast bush of life provides the food energy we need to survive.
DAVID: What's wrong with recognizing Humans were His ultimate purpose and He used evolution of life to get there?dhw: You are claiming that he specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms in order to get to humans! I have offered you two theistic exp lanations of the non-human bush that do allow for the special purpose, but you keep ignoring them or trotting out your silly “humanization” objection.
DAVID: Don't object to your humanized explanations. They all list a human interest such as spectacle.
dhw: Thank you for no longer objecting. I would suggest that a theory which posits God as being interested in all the products of his invention is actually more likely than a theory which posits that he deliberately designed all of these products although the only thing he really wanted to design was humans.
You misread. I still object to spectacles, etc., as I responded to your last sentence now bolded. Of course God was/is interested in all of life's vast bush that He created on his way to humans. He deliberately and purposely designed all of it.
DAVID: He obviously had to design all prior stages until He got to humans. My usage of words is not strange. God is the necessary designer of the evolutionary processdhw: Yes, if he exists he designed the evolutionary process. But “evolution” does not mean the direct design of every product of the evolutionary process, and it does not mean that every organism that preceded humans constituted a necessary prior stage on the way from bacteria to humans.
DAVID: How do you know what God thought as He evolved bacteria and everything else to get to us? My presumption is the history of evolution tells us what God did as designer of each step. Your approach in the bold is to accept that God only designed process that took care of itself.
dhw: It was you who specified that he designed the evolutionary process, and that allows for the theory that it “took care of itself”. You presume that he designed not only each step from bacteria to us, but also each life form, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc. that had nothing whatsoever to do with us. All of these constitute part of the “history of evolution”. Back we go to the question at the heart of this whole discussion: What do you “presume” was his purpose in directly designing all of them?
Covered endlessly in econiches discussion re' food supply for billions of eventual humans covering the Earth, as now. Don't you notice it is such a problem there are huge industries in agriculture and animal husbandry to unnaturally develop enough food supply? Your bolded phrase shows what you choose not to recognize.
David's theory of evolution: problems of food supply
by David Turell , Monday, June 08, 2020, 19:22 (1627 days ago) @ David Turell
This article discusses the developing problems:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-threats-global-food-emerging-fungal.html
"Amongst the world's most challenging problems is the need to feed an ever-growing global population sustainably.
"Securing the food supply is of paramount importance, and more attention must be given to the threat from fungal pathogens competing with us for our own crops.
***
"Professor Gurr said: "Over the past centuries, crop diseases have led to the starvation of the people, the ruination of economies and the downfall of governments.
"'Today, the threat to plants of fungal infection outstrips that posed by bacterial and viral diseases combined.
"'Indeed, fungal and oomycete diseases have been increasing in severity and scale since the mid 20th Century and now pose a very serious threat to global food security.
"'We face a future blighted by known adversaries, by new variants of old foes and by new diseases.
"'Modern agricultural intensification practices have heightened this challenge.
***
"Dr. Helen Fones said: "Our review looks to the future; summarizing our main challenges and knowledge gaps, and highlighting the research needed to face the threat of emerging crop pathogens.
"'We consider this challenge in terms of both the crops essential for providing calories and those commodities that fuel global trade and the global economy that we rely upon.
***
"'This reminds us that we need to make agriculture less reliant on fungicides which are also used to treat fungal infections in humans, as this can lead to resistance moving from agricultural to clinical settings (as highlighted in an article in Science in 2018, authored by Sarah Gurr, with Mat Fisher from Imperial College).
"'Here, we discuss the need for new fungicides, especially ones that have complex modes of action, and are harder for the pathogen to develop resistance to."
"But not all is "doom and gloom" as illustrated in recent work, led by co-author Professor Gero Steinberg.
"In a recent publication in the journal Nature Communications, Exeter scientists described the development of a new fungicide, which holds the potential to help protect our food crops against fungal pathogens.
"Professor Steinberg said: "The challenge of fungal crop diseases is enormous.
"'With the help of the BBSRC and the University of Exeter, Sarah Gurr's and my research group are following a dual strategy: to raise awareness, illustrated by this article in Nature Food, and also to develop new 'weapons' in our fight to secure global food security.'"
Comment: Full support for my theory as to why God made the bush of life so big and so complex. Econiches and planned production of foods are all vital.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: If God exists, history tells us that he chose evolution as the method of producing every single organism that ever lived. It does not tell us that he directly designed every single one, or that the only organism he wanted evolution to produce was H. sapiens.
DAVID: Your response lists my true beliefs.
dhw: Yes, they are beliefs and they are not history, though you constantly try to conflate the two.
DAVID: The two are already conflated in my belief that God runs evolution, and I see Him as viewing humans as His desired endpoint, but He fully had to desire to produce all that came beforehand as the necessary food supply. All carefully planned.
And
dhw: You presume that he designed not only each step from bacteria to us, but also each life form, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc. that had nothing whatsoever to do with us. All of these constitute part of the “history of evolution”. Back we go to the question at the heart of this whole discussion: What do you “presume” was his purpose in directly designing all of them?
DAVID: Covered endlessly in econiches discussion re' food supply for billions of eventual humans covering the Earth, as now. Don't you notice it is such a problem there are huge industries in agriculture and animal husbandry to unnaturally develop enough food supply? Your bolded phrase shows what you choose not to recognize.
But you believe that your God directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and econiches before humans even appeared on the scene! Stop pretending it never happened! The whole discussion centres on why, if his sole purpose was humans, he specially designed all the extinct life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans! You have no idea why, and so now you are arguing as if life and econiches only began with humans!
dhw: But wiggling all over the place is not consistent with having a single purpose (H. sapiens) in mind, plus the ability to fulfil that purpose any way he wished, plus the claim that he was always in control! Repeat: it suggests that he WANTED the vast variety of life forms, lifestyles, econiches, natural wonders etc. And that is not consistent with the theory that all he wanted was humans.
DAVID: Again you have forgotten or ignore the obvious. Of course God knew the population we would achieve and the vast bush of life provides the food energy we need to survive.
So God provided 3.X billion years of food for the humans who did not even exist! You abandoned this absurd argument ages ago, so I don’t know why you’ve suddenly gone back to it.
And again, under “problems of food supply”:
DAVID: Full support for my theory as to why God made the bush of life so big and so complex. Econiches and planned production of foods are all vital.
Of course econiches are vital, and always have been for every form of life! But there is no support for your theory that your God specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms and econiches, and did so for the sole purpose of specially designing H. sapiens. Please stop trying to conflate the importance of econiches with your theory of evolution!
dhw: I would suggest that a theory which posits God as being interested in all the products of his invention is actually more likely than a theory which posits that he deliberately designed all of these products although the only thing he really wanted to design was humans.
DAVID: You misread. I still object to spectacles, etc., […] Of course God was/is interested in all of life's vast bush that He created on his way to humans. He deliberately and purposely designed all of it.
You object to his being interested in the spectacle of life’s vast bush, but of course he was/is interested in all of life’s vast bush. Curiouser and curiouser.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 09, 2020, 20:45 (1626 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You presume that he designed not only each step from bacteria to us, but also each life form, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc. that had nothing whatsoever to do with us. All of these constitute part of the “history of evolution”. Back we go to the question at the heart of this whole discussion: What do you “presume” was his purpose in directly designing all of them?
DAVID: Covered endlessly in econiches discussion re' food supply for billions of eventual humans covering the Earth, as now. Don't you notice it is such a problem there are huge industries in agriculture and animal husbandry to unnaturally develop enough food supply? Your bolded phrase shows what you choose not to recognize.
dhw: But you believe that your God directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and econiches before humans even appeared on the scene! Stop pretending it never happened! The whole discussion centres on why, if his sole purpose was humans, he specially designed all the extinct life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans! You have no idea why, and so now you are arguing as if life and econiches only began with humans!
Once again you are assuming God did not choose to evolve humans from bacteria as history tells us and you agree He could have done. Your twisted view of my reasoning solves nothning.
dhw: But wiggling all over the place is not consistent with having a single purpose (H. sapiens) in mind, plus the ability to fulfil that purpose any way he wished, plus the claim that he was always in control! Repeat: it suggests that he WANTED the vast variety of life forms, lifestyles, econiches, natural wonders etc. And that is not consistent with the theory that all he wanted was humans.DAVID: Again you have forgotten or ignore the obvious. Of course God knew the population we would achieve and the vast bush of life provides the food energy we need to survive.
dhw: So God provided 3.X billion years of food for the humans who did not even exist! You abandoned this absurd argument ages ago, so I don’t know why you’ve suddenly gone back to it.
I've never abandoned it. Building such a food supply required an enlarged bush as we have today to support 7.3 billion humans and growing more.
And again, under “problems of food supply”:
DAVID: Full support for my theory as to why God made the bush of life so big and so complex. Econiches and planned production of foods are all vital.
dhw: Of course econiches are vital, and always have been for every form of life! But there is no support for your theory that your God specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms and econiches, and did so for the sole purpose of specially designing H. sapiens. Please stop trying to conflate the importance of econiches with your theory of evolution!
Still comes back to the interpretation of why humans are here, based on our very different attributes, which you always try to diminish by telling us how bright every other organism happens to be, which is supposed to diminish our difference.
dhw: I would suggest that a theory which posits God as being interested in all the products of his invention is actually more likely than a theory which posits that he deliberately designed all of these products although the only thing he really wanted to design was humans.DAVID: You misread. I still object to spectacles, etc., […] Of course God was/is interested in all of life's vast bush that He created on his way to humans. He deliberately and purposely designed all of it.
dhw: You object to his being interested in the spectacle of life’s vast bush, but of course he was/is interested in all of life’s vast bush. Curiouser and curiouser.
Curious only if you refuse to recognize God's purposeful activity to reach humans as a final step in evolution. God is always interested in his activity.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: You presume that he designed not only each step from bacteria to us, but also each life form, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc. that had nothing whatsoever to do with us. All of these constitute part of the “history of evolution”. Back we go to the question at the heart of this whole discussion: What do you “presume” was his purpose in directly designing all of them?
DAVID: Covered endlessly in econiches discussion re' food supply for billions of eventual humans covering the Earth, as now. Don't you notice it is such a problem there are huge industries in agriculture and animal husbandry to unnaturally develop enough food supply? Your bolded phrase shows what you choose not to recognize.
dhw: But you believe that your God directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and econiches before humans even appeared on the scene! Stop pretending it never happened! The whole discussion centres on why, if his sole purpose was humans, he specially designed all the extinct life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans! You have no idea why, and so now you are arguing as if life and econiches only began with humans!
DAVID: Once again you are assuming God did not choose to evolve humans from bacteria as history tells us and you agree He could have done. Your twisted view of my reasoning solves nothing.
You keep deliberately dodging the issue of why an all-powerful God whose sole purpose was to evolve humans from bacteria would choose to directly design millions of life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans. […]
DAVID (re econiches): Building such a food supply required an enlarged bush as we have today to support 7.3 billion humans and growing more.
dhw: Of course econiches are vital, and always have been for every form of life! But there is no support for your theory that your God specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms and econiches, and did so for the sole purpose of specially designing H. sapiens. Please stop trying to conflate the importance of econiches with your theory of evolution!
DAVID: Still comes back to the interpretation of why humans are here, based on our very different attributes, which you always try to diminish by telling us how bright every other organism happens to be, which is supposed to diminish our difference.
Shifting the subject again!This has nothing whatsoever to do with the absurd argument that your God designed all those extinct econiches in order to feed humans who did not even exist. As for the “difference” I have always acknowledged it. (Repeated for the umpteenth time in yesterday’s post on brain expansion, precisely because I knew you would resort to this distortion: ("This is not to downplay the vast gap between our consciousness levels and theirs. I am merely responding to your reference to "parts".) I have even offered you two explanations of the bush which allow for your God’s special focus on humans.
dhw: I would suggest that a theory which posits God as being interested in all the products of his invention is actually more likely than a theory which posits that he deliberately designed all of these products although the only thing he really wanted to design was humans.
DAVID: You misread. I still object to spectacles, etc., […] Of course God was/is interested in all of life's vast bush that He created on his way to humans. He deliberately and purposely designed all of it.
dhw: You object to his being interested in the spectacle of life’s vast bush, but of course he was/is interested in all of life’s vast bush. Curiouser and curiouser.
DAVID: Curious only if you refuse to recognize God's purposeful activity to reach humans as a final step in evolution. God is always interested in his activity.
As before, I have offered you two explanations of the pre-human bush which allow for your God’s “final step” AND explain the vast bush that preceded it AND offer a purpose for ALL the life forms, including humans. Why would he bother to create any organism, if he wasn’t interested in its activities? And humans, with their special gifts would be especially interesting. You agree but you object.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 17:53 (1625 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 18:01
DAVID: Once again you are assuming God did not choose to evolve humans from bacteria as history tells us and you agree He could have done. Your twisted view of my reasoning solves nothing.
dhw: You keep deliberately dodging the issue of why an all-powerful God whose sole purpose was to evolve humans from bacteria would choose to directly design millions of life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans. […]
I dodge nothing. You first agree that God could have chosen to evolve humans, and then you express surprise that so many forms over so many stages took place first! We are discussing my theory according to the heading. And again you denigrate the econiche importance for food supply for seven + billion humans now living on Earth. According to you God couldn't have planned ahead to answer the problems, but I forget, your version of some sort of a god bumbles along enjoying spectacles, not sure of himself, experimenting, and you object to my calling your version humanized. How you try to pick apart my version of how God ran evolution for His purposes make absolutely no sense to me if we first agree to discuss my theory as to how God ran evolution. It is simple to just accept the historical record. All of my explanations then logically fit.
DAVID: Still comes back to the interpretation of why humans are here, based on our very different attributes, which you always try to diminish by telling us how bright every other organism happens to be, which is supposed to diminish our difference.
dhw: Shifting the subject again!This has nothing whatsoever to do with the absurd argument that your God designed all those extinct econiches in order to feed humans who did not even exist.
It is interesting that your view of God is that He cannot reason what the future would bring once human were dominant and their population grew in enormous numbers.
dhw: I would suggest that a theory which posits God as being interested in all the products of his invention is actually more likely than a theory which posits that he deliberately designed all of these products although the only thing he really wanted to design was humans.
DAVID: You misread. I still object to spectacles, etc., […] Of course God was/is interested in all of life's vast bush that He created on his way to humans. He deliberately and purposely designed all of it.
dhw: You object to his being interested in the spectacle of life’s vast bush, but of course he was/is interested in all of life’s vast bush. Curiouser and curiouser.
DAVID: Curious only if you refuse to recognize God's purposeful activity to reach humans as a final step in evolution. God is always interested in his activity.
dhw: As before, I have offered you two explanations of the pre-human bush which allow for your God’s “final step” AND explain the vast bush that preceded it AND offer a purpose for ALL the life forms, including humans. Why would he bother to create any organism, if he wasn’t interested in its activities? And humans, with their special gifts would be especially interesting. You agree but you object.
I've discussed your humanizing explanations above. But you are correct about God's interests. I certainly assume God is interested in all his evolutionary creations as they formed econiches, as He worked His evolutionary way to create humans.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Once again you are assuming God did not choose to evolve humans from bacteria as history tells us and you agree He could have done. Your twisted view of my reasoning solves nothing.
dhw: You keep deliberately dodging the issue of why an all-powerful God whose sole purpose was to evolve humans from bacteria would choose to directly design millions of life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans. […]
DAVID: I dodge nothing. You first agree that God could have chosen to evolve humans, and then you express surprise that so many forms over so many stages took place first!
My surprise is that an all-powerful God whose sole purpose (your theory) was to evolve (in your vocabulary = directly design) H. sapiens, directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms that had nothing to do with H. sapiens. This is the central point which even now you are still dodging.
DAVID: We are discussing my theory according to the heading. And again you denigrate the econiche importance for food supply for seven + billion humans now living on Earth
And later:
DAVID: It is interesting that your view of God is that He cannot reason what the future would bring once human were dominant and their population grew in enormous numbers.
I only ask why it was necessary for your God, whose sole purpose was apparently to design H. sapiens and his food supply, to design 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and their food supplies before humans existed. What relevance do all these specially designed, long dead life forms and econiches have to the 7+ billion humans currently living on Earth? You have no answer.
DAVID: According to you God couldn't have planned ahead to answer the problems, but I forget, your version of some sort of a god bumbles along enjoying spectacles, not sure of himself, experimenting, and you object to my calling your version humanized.
I keep asking you to provide a connection between the 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms, econiches and problems, and humans and their econiches and problems, and you cannot find one, which is why you keep changing the subject. There is no “bumbling” involved if your God creates a spectacle for himself to enjoy, or in the concept of a God who does not know everything in advance but experiments or, alternatively, deliberately sets in motion a process that may lead to unpredictable results (as with free will). All of these explain what you call the “historical record”, and fit in with your agreement that God probably has thought patterns similar to ours. […]
DAVID: …you are correct about God's interests. I certainly assume God is interested in all his evolutionary creations as they formed econiches, as He worked His evolutionary way to create humans.
So maybe – to fit in with part of your theory – he specially designed them because he was interested in specially designing things for his own interest. But how does this fit in with the theory that the ONLY thing your all-powerful, all-knowing God wanted to design was H. sapiens?
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, June 11, 2020, 16:10 (1624 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I dodge nothing. You first agree that God could have chosen to evolve humans, and then you express surprise that so many forms over so many stages took place first!
dhw: My surprise is that an all-powerful God whose sole purpose (your theory) was to evolve (in your vocabulary = directly design) H. sapiens, directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms that had nothing to do with H. sapiens. This is the central point which even now you are still dodging.
You have invented a so-called dodge. Once again, from history, with God in charge of creating history. it is obvious God chose to evolve humans by first creating previous forms over the time required. You imply God should have directly created humans. It didn't happen that way.
dhw: I keep asking you to provide a connection between the 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms, econiches and problems, and humans and their econiches and problems, and you cannot find one, which is why you keep changing the subject. There is no “bumbling” involved if your God creates a spectacle for himself to enjoy, or in the concept of a God who does not know everything in advance but experiments or, alternatively, deliberately sets in motion a process that may lead to unpredictable results (as with free will). All of these explain what you call the “historical record”, and fit in with your agreement that God probably has thought patterns similar to ours. […]
And all your suppositions about God's thoughts are obviously humanized suggestions. You deny that point, because you feel you can think like God, but all you are doing is attributing you human thinking to Him. God's reasons are known only to Him.
DAVID: …you are correct about God's interests. I certainly assume God is interested in all his evolutionary creations as they formed econiches, as He worked His evolutionary way to create humans.dhw: So maybe – to fit in with part of your theory – he specially designed them because he was interested in specially designing things for his own interest. But how does this fit in with the theory that the ONLY thing your all-powerful, all-knowing God wanted to design was H. sapiens?
In running the process of evolution and creating the econiches, God's interest is in providing appropriate designs at each stage. You are, as usual, suggesting interest for the sake of interest. Just more humanizing. Why not accept God as simply working purposefully? He does not require self-satisfaction, a characteristic of your humanizing suggestions.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: I dodge nothing. You first agree that God could have chosen to evolve humans, and then you express surprise that so many forms over so many stages took place first!
dhw: My surprise is that an all-powerful God whose sole purpose (your theory) was to evolve (in your vocabulary = directly design) H. sapiens, directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms that had nothing to do with H. sapiens. This is the central point which even now you are still dodging.
DAVID: You have invented a so-called dodge. Once again, from history, with God in charge of creating history. it is obvious God chose to evolve humans by first creating previous forms over the time required. You imply God should have directly created humans. It didn't happen that way.
You are still dodging! It is obvious that there were millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. thousands of millions of years before humans. It is not obvious from history that your God directly designed them all, and as I wrote yesterday: I keep asking you to provide a connection between the 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms, econiches and problems, and humans and their econiches and problems, and you cannot find one, which is why you keep changing the subject.
dhw: There is no “bumbling” involved if your God creates a spectacle for himself to enjoy, or in the concept of a God who does not know everything in advance but experiments or, alternatively, deliberately sets in motion a process that may lead to unpredictable results (as with free will). All of these explain what you call the “historical record”, and fit in with your agreement that God probably has thought patterns similar to ours. […]
DAVID: And all your suppositions about God's thoughts are obviously humanized suggestions. You deny that point, because you feel you can think like God, but all you are doing is attributing you human thinking to Him. God's reasons are known only to Him.
I have never denied that point! I find it totally feasible that if God exists, he will probably have thought patterns similar to our own – as you rightly pointed out. The fact that God’s reasons are known only to him does not lend one jot of credibility to your theory – conjured up by your human mind, which can find no logical way of connecting its basic premises.
DAVID: …you are correct about God's interests. I certainly assume God is interested in all his evolutionary creations as they formed econiches, as He worked His evolutionary way to create humans.
dhw: So maybe – to fit in with part of your theory – he specially designed them because he was interested in specially designing things for his own interest. But how does this fit in with the theory that the ONLY thing your all-powerful, all-knowing God wanted to design was H. sapiens?
DAVID: In running the process of evolution and creating the econiches, God's interest is in providing appropriate designs at each stage. You are, as usual, suggesting interest for the sake of interest. Just more humanizing. Why not accept God as simply working purposefully? He does not require self-satisfaction, a characteristic of your humanizing suggestions.
At each stage of what? Certainly not each stage of creating humans, which you say was his sole purpose. Of course I accept that he has a purpose. If he is interested in providing designs for all kinds of life forms and econiches, that is a purpose in itself. And how do you know that he does not require self-satisfaction (you even offered the image of a painter enjoying his own paintings)? If God’s reasons are known only to him, what authority do you have for telling us that his reason for directly designing millions of extinct non-human life forms etc. was to produce H. sapiens, although you have no idea why he chose such a method.
dhw:I do not question the importance of the balance of nature for the survival of any species, including humans. I question your theory that for 3.X billion years your God had to design loads and loads of different ecosystems, the vast majority of which are extinct and had nothing whatever to do with humans, because although humans were his only purpose, for reasons you cannot even begin to fathom he had decided not to design them for 3.X billion years.
DAVID: (under “importance of ecosystems”): In dhw's confused state he does not seem to recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-recovery-sea-otter-populations-yields.html
Of course I recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems! You even reproduced my argument as quoted above, and then immediately ignored it! It is now bolded.
Under "intelligent design":
DAVID: Evolution is a system of taking from the past and repurposing in the future. It took 3.8 billion years to get from bacteria to humans.It is obvious the time was required.
All agreed, including the fact that it took 3.X billion years to get from bacteria to humans, and it is obvious that this was the time it took, because this was the time it took. How does that explain the disconnected theory bolded above?
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Friday, June 12, 2020, 23:44 (1623 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I dodge nothing. You first agree that God could have chosen to evolve humans, and then you express surprise that so many forms over so many stages took place first!
dhw: My surprise is that an all-powerful God whose sole purpose (your theory) was to evolve (in your vocabulary = directly design) H. sapiens, directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms that had nothing to do with H. sapiens. This is the central point which even now you are still dodging.
DAVID: You have invented a so-called dodge. Once again, from history, with God in charge of creating history. it is obvious God chose to evolve humans by first creating previous forms over the time required. You imply God should have directly created humans. It didn't happen that way.
dhw: You are still dodging! It is obvious that there were millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. thousands of millions of years before humans. It is not obvious from history that your God directly designed them all,
The bold is your problem, as usual. Of course there is no absolute proof God did anything. But it is my belief He created reality and everything I explain follows logically from that. Please finally remember we are discussing my belief as to how humans appeared. You will not talk or argue me out of that. So quit trying. It is your problem of not knowing what, if anything to accept, as explanations for the existence of the universe, life, or us.
DAVID: …you are correct about God's interests. I certainly assume God is interested in all his evolutionary creations as they formed econiches, as He worked His evolutionary way to create humans.
dhw:I do not question the importance of the balance of nature for the survival of any species, including humans. I question your theory that for 3.X billion years your God had to design loads and loads of different ecosystems, the vast majority of which are extinct and had nothing whatever to do with humans, because although humans were his only purpose, for reasons you cannot even begin to fathom he had decided not to design them for 3.X billion years.
Same unreasonable objections to my beliefs. It is impossible to evolve humans from bacteria unless the stages of evolution occur in the order they did. That is what God had to do to eventually produce us.
DAVID: (under “importance of ecosystems”): In dhw's confused state he does not seem to recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-recovery-sea-otter-populations-yields.html
dhw: Of course I recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems! You even reproduced my argument as quoted above, and then immediately ignored it! It is now bolded.
Under "intelligent design":
DAVID: Evolution is a system of taking from the past and repurposing in the future. It took 3.8 billion years to get from bacteria to humans.It is obvious the time was required.
dhw: All agreed, including the fact that it took 3.X billion years to get from bacteria to humans, and it is obvious that this was the time it took, because this was the time it took. How does that explain the disconnected theory bolded above?
The only disconnect is you don't accept my faith that God created reality in the manner history instructs us. You cannot get rid of my belief system, which is what you are attacking. And you certainly won't accept that Adler, one of the premier educators and philosophers of the 20th century, established a powerful book that carefully outlined all the logical reasons for identifying humans as God's prime purpose.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: I dodge nothing. You first agree that God could have chosen to evolve humans, and then you express surprise that so many forms over so many stages took place first!
dhw: My surprise is that an all-powerful God whose sole purpose (your theory) was to evolve (in your vocabulary = directly design) H. sapiens, directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms that had nothing to do with H. sapiens. This is the central point which even now you are still dodging.
DAVID: You have invented a so-called dodge. Once again, from history, with God in charge of creating history. it is obvious God chose to evolve humans by first creating previous forms over the time required. You imply God should have directly created humans. It didn't happen that way.
dhw: You are still dodging! It is obvious that there were millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. thousands of millions of years before humans. It is not obvious from history that your God directly designed them all (etc.)
DAVID: The bold is your problem, as usual. Of course there is no absolute proof God did anything. But it is my belief He created reality and everything I explain follows logically from that. […]
And so you continue to dodge: God created reality, his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and apparently it follows logically that he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches etc. before directly designing various humans before directly designing H. sapiens. And you think this is a logical sequence.
DAVID: …you are correct about God's interests. I certainly assume God is interested in all his evolutionary creations as they formed econiches, as He worked His evolutionary way to create humans.
dhw:I do not question the importance of the balance of nature for the survival of any species, including humans. I question your theory that for 3.X billion years your God had to design loads and loads of different ecosystems, the vast majority of which are extinct and had nothing whatever to do with humans, because although humans were his only purpose, for reasons you cannot even begin to fathom he had decided not to design them for 3.X billion years.
DAVID: Same unreasonable objections to my beliefs. It is impossible to evolve humans from bacteria unless the stages of evolution occur in the order they did. That is what God had to do to eventually produce us.
Same dodge: bearing in mind that your God is apparently “direct designer of all that appears”, why did he directly 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms and econiches before directly designing the first humans? It doesn’t make sense!
DAVID: (under “importance of ecosystems”): In dhw's confused state he does not seem to recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-recovery-sea-otter-populations-yields.html
dhw: Of course I recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems! You even reproduced my argument as quoted above, and then immediately ignored it!
I hope you will now once and for all stop trying to use the need for balanced ecosystems as an explanation for your God’s design of 3.X billion years of life forms and ecosystems that had nothing to do with humans.
Under "intelligent design":
DAVID: Evolution is a system of taking from the past and repurposing in the future. It took 3.8 billion years to get from bacteria to humans.It is obvious the time was required.
dhw: All agreed, including the fact that it took 3.X billion years to get from bacteria to humans, and it is obvious that this was the time it took, because this was the time it took. How does that explain the disconnected theory bolded above?
DAVID: The only disconnect is you don't accept my faith that God created reality in the manner history instructs us.
If God exists, I have no doubt that he created reality in the manner history instructs us. But history does not instruct us that he directly designed every life form etc., as now bolded above as many times as I can manage in one post.
DAVID: You cannot get rid of my belief system, which is what you are attacking. And you certainly won't accept that Adler, one of the premier educators and philosophers of the 20th century, established a powerful book that carefully outlined all the logical reasons for identifying humans as God's prime purpose.
With my open-minded approach, I have offered you two logical explanations of evolution which DO identify humans as a prime purpose. These explanations remove the disconnect in your theory, as bolded above – a disconnect which you have never been able to explain.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, June 13, 2020, 21:04 (1622 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The bold is your problem, as usual. Of course there is no absolute proof God did anything. But it is my belief He created reality and everything I explain follows logically from that. […]
dhw: And so you continue to dodge: God created reality, his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and apparently it follows logically that he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches etc. before directly designing various humans before directly designing H. sapiens. And you think this is a logical sequence.
It is totally logical if you accept that a God-in-charge allows the conclusion that since evolution occurred He close to run all of it until humans appeared. You just never accept that He 'chose' to do it the way we see.
DAVID: Same unreasonable objections to my beliefs. It is impossible to evolve humans from bacteria unless the stages of evolution occur in the order they did. That is what God had to do to eventually produce us.
dhw: Same dodge: bearing in mind that your God is apparently “direct designer of all that appears”, why did he directly 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms and econiches before directly designing the first humans? It doesn’t make sense!
Only to you. Try accepting that God had the right to chose evolving humans. That is the first step in a series of logical conclusions, that you always avoid. The next step is to accept history as describing His actions. Extending your weird objection, why is the universe so old? Your reasoning applies here. Why wait 13.8 billion years to create humans on Earth? By your contorted thinking, God could have produced the Milky Way at the same time, the Earth at the same time, and humans at the same time.
Under "intelligent design":
DAVID: Evolution is a system of taking from the past and repurposing in the future. It took 3.8 billion years to get from bacteria to humans.It is obvious the time was required.dhw: All agreed, including the fact that it took 3.X billion years to get from bacteria to humans, and it is obvious that this was the time it took, because this was the time it took. How does that explain the disconnected theory bolded above?
DAVID: The only disconnect is you don't accept my faith that God created reality in the manner history instructs us.
If God exists, I have no doubt that he created reality in the manner history instructs us. But history does not instruct us that he directly designed every life form etc., as now bolded above as many times as I can manage in one post.
DAVID: You cannot get rid of my belief system, which is what you are attacking. And you certainly won't accept that Adler, one of the premier educators and philosophers of the 20th century, established a powerful book that carefully outlined all the logical reasons for identifying humans as God's prime purpose.
dhw: With my open-minded approach, I have offered you two logical explanations of evolution which DO identify humans as a prime purpose. These explanations remove the disconnect in your theory, as bolded above – a disconnect which you have never been able to explain.
I am not disconnected. As in the bold above history does not confirm my belief. I arrive at my belief by accepting that history tells us what God does/did. This is why our arguments differ. You won't accept that approach, which then describes your so-called 'open-minded' status as not open-minded.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: The bold is your problem, as usual. Of course there is no absolute proof God did anything. But it is my belief He created reality and everything I explain follows logically from that. […]
dhw: And so you continue to dodge: God created reality, his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and apparently it follows logically that he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches etc. before directly designing various humans before directly designing H. sapiens. And you think this is a logical sequence.
DAVID: It is totally logical if you accept that a God-in-charge allows the conclusion that since evolution occurred He close to run all of it until humans appeared. You just never accept that He 'chose' to do it the way we see.
I accept totally that if God exists, he would have chosen what we see: millions and millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders coming and going for millions and millions of years, and eventually different forms of humans ultimately leading to one species of human. That does not explain why, if he is all-powerful and had only one purpose from the very beginning (H. sapiens), he would have directly designed all those extinct life forms etc. that had nothing to do with humans. So maybe H. sapiens was not his only purpose from the beginning, or maybe if H. sapiens was his purpose from the beginning, everything that preceded humans was part of a great experiment, or maybe the idea for humans only came late on in his thinking.
DAVID: Try accepting that God had the right to chose evolving humans. That is the first step in a series of logical conclusions, that you always avoid.
If you mean he had the right to make H. sapiens his one and only purpose, I have dealt with that above.
DAVID: The next step is to accept history as describing His actions. Extending your weird objection, why is the universe so old? Your reasoning applies here. Why wait 13.8 billion years to create humans on Earth? By your contorted thinking, God could have produced the Milky Way at the same time, the Earth at the same time, and humans at the same time.
That is not my way of thinking at all! My starting point is the history, whereas yours is God’ purpose, which you try to impose on the history! And it doesn’t work. If God exists, I would see him as a scientist systematically putting together all the bits and pieces that were necessary for life. Of course they took time. None of us know why he wanted to create life in the first place. But if he started life with single cells, and those single cells eventually merged and cooperated into a huge variety of organisms, I would assume that he wanted a huge variety of organisms. I would not assume that he directly designed them all (he could have given them the intelligence to do their own designing), and I would not assume that the one and only reason why he wanted a huge variety of organisms was for him eventually to directly design H. sapiens. That is why I propose a variety of explanations for the variety of organisms that preceded H. sapiens. You have accepted that all of them are logical, but you are unable to find any connection between the vast variety of pre-human organisms plus their econiches and your proposal that he only wanted one plus its econiches.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, June 14, 2020, 19:41 (1621 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The bold is your problem, as usual. Of course there is no absolute proof God did anything. But it is my belief He created reality and everything I explain follows logically from that. […]
dhw: And so you continue to dodge: God created reality, his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and apparently it follows logically that he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches etc. before directly designing various humans before directly designing H. sapiens. And you think this is a logical sequence.
DAVID: It is totally logical if you accept that a God-in-charge allows the conclusion that since evolution occurred He close to run all of it until humans appeared. You just never accept that He 'chose' to do it the way we see.
dhw: I accept totally that if God exists, he would have chosen what we see: millions and millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders coming and going for millions and millions of years, and eventually different forms of humans ultimately leading to one species of human. That does not explain why, if he is all-powerful and had only one purpose from the very beginning (H. sapiens), he would have directly designed all those extinct life forms etc. that had nothing to do with humans. So maybe H. sapiens was not his only purpose from the beginning, or maybe if H. sapiens was his purpose from the beginning, everything that preceded humans was part of a great experiment, or maybe the idea for humans only came late on in his thinking.
All you have done again is assume humanizing views of what God might have been thinking as He employed evolution to create what He wanted to create. In the bold you directly contradict the beginning of your paragraph, in that you don't accept humans as his prime purpose. Fine. On that we will continuously disagree, as I accept Adler's detailed arguments and you refuse to consider them.
DAVID: The next step is to accept history as describing His actions. Extending your weird objection, why is the universe so old? Your reasoning applies here. Why wait 13.8 billion years to create humans on Earth? By your contorted thinking, God could have produced the Milky Way at the same time, the Earth at the same time, and humans at the same time.
dhw: That is not my way of thinking at all! My starting point is the history, whereas yours is God’ purpose, which you try to impose on the history! And it doesn’t work. If God exists, I would see him as a scientist systematically putting together all the bits and pieces that were necessary for life. Of course they took time. None of us know why he wanted to create life in the first place. But if he started life with single cells, and those single cells eventually merged and cooperated into a huge variety of organisms, I would assume that he wanted a huge variety of organisms. I would not assume that he directly designed them all (he could have given them the intelligence to do their own designing), and I would not assume that the one and only reason why he wanted a huge variety of organisms was for him eventually to directly design H. sapiens. That is why I propose a variety of explanations for the variety of organisms that preceded H. sapiens. You have accepted that all of them are logical, but you are unable to find any connection between the vast variety of pre-human organisms plus their econiches and your proposal that he only wanted one plus its econiches.
This fully humanizing discussion of your version of God does not recognize the whole of history. It dwells insufficiently by concentrating solely on life's evolution. Let's start in the beginning. What is your version of why God created the universe? Purpose present or not? Just experimenting? Does He know what He is about? I fully expect your usual humanized unpurposed God.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Of course there is no absolute proof God did anything. But it is my belief He created reality and everything I explain follows logically from that. […]
dhw: And so you continue to dodge: God created reality, his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and apparently it follows logically that he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches etc. before directly designing various humans before directly designing H. sapiens. And you think this is a logical sequence.
DAVID: It is totally logical if you accept that a God-in-charge allows the conclusion that since evolution occurred He close to run all of it until humans appeared. You just never accept that He 'chose' to do it the way we see.
dhw: I accept totally that if God exists, he would have chosen what we see: millions and millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders coming and going for millions and millions of years, and eventually different forms of humans ultimately leading to one species of human. That does not explain why, if he is all-powerful and had only one purpose from the very beginning (H. sapiens), he would have directly designed all those extinct life forms etc. that had nothing to do with humans. So maybe H. sapiens was not his only purpose from the beginning, or maybe if H. sapiens was his purpose from the beginning, everything that preceded humans was part of a great experiment, or maybe the idea for humans only came late on in his thinking.
DAVID: All you have done again is assume humanizing views of what God might have been thinking as He employed evolution to create what He wanted to create.
Do please drop this silly objection to any theory that “humanizes” God. Nobody knows God’s thoughts, but there is no reason to oppose your own suggestion that he probably has thought patterns similar to our own.
DAVID: In the bold you directly contradict the beginning of your paragraph, in that you don't accept humans as his prime purpose. Fine. On that we will continuously disagree, as I accept Adler's detailed arguments and you refuse to consider them.
As usual, you dodge the fact that I have offered you two possible explanations of evolution in which God’s prime purpose IS humans. But as above, you reject these as “humanizing”.
dhw: [..]I propose a variety of explanations for the variety of organisms that preceded H. sapiens. You have accepted that all of them are logical, but you are unable to find any connection between the vast variety of pre-human organisms plus their econiches and your proposal that he only wanted one plus its econiches.
DAVID: This fully humanizing discussion of your version of God does not recognize the whole of history. It dwells insufficiently by concentrating solely on life's evolution. Let's start in the beginning. What is your version of why God created the universe? Purpose present or not? Just experimenting? Does He know what He is about? I fully expect your usual humanized unpurposed God.
And yet again you try to dodge the issue of the disconnection in your theory of evolution! Your questions have been answered umpteen times. If God exists, then of course he had a purpose for creating the universe and life. We are in agreement. Our only disagreement concerns what his purpose was, and how he fulfilled it, so of course we focus on life’s evolution! For some reason, you limit his purpose to the creation of H. sapiens, but you refuse to tell us what was his purpose in creating H. sapiens. And you cannot tell us why, if his only purpose was H. sapiens, he directly created 3.X billion years’ worth of non-humans etc. I offer you various hypotheses – all of which you recognize as logical – which allow for H. sapiens as a prime purpose, or which offer a different purpose, or which offer different interpretations of God’s powers (maybe he experiments, maybe he learns). But you cling to the only hypothesis which you yourself find inexplicable: that an all-powerful God with a single purpose (H. sapiens) directly designs millions of extinct non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc. before directly designing various non-sapiens before directly designing sapiens, the only thing he wanted to design (apart from sapiens’ econiches). Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, June 15, 2020, 18:46 (1620 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And so you continue to dodge: God created reality, his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and apparently it follows logically that he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches etc. before directly designing various humans before directly designing H. sapiens. And you think this is a logical sequence.
DAVID: It is totally logical if you accept that a God-in-charge allows the conclusion that since evolution occurred He close to run all of it until humans appeared. You just never accept that He 'chose' to do it the way we see.
dhw: I accept totally that if God exists, he would have chosen what we see: millions and millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders coming and going for millions and millions of years, and eventually different forms of humans ultimately leading to one species of human. That does not explain why, if he is all-powerful and had only one purpose from the very beginning (H. sapiens), he would have directly designed all those extinct life forms etc. that had nothing to do with humans. So maybe H. sapiens was not his only purpose from the beginning, or maybe if H. sapiens was his purpose from the beginning, everything that preceded humans was part of a great experiment, or maybe the idea for humans only came late on in his thinking.
DAVID: All you have done again is assume humanizing views of what God might have been thinking as He employed evolution to create what He wanted to create.
dhw: Do please drop this silly objection to any theory that “humanizes” God. Nobody knows God’s thoughts, but there is no reason to oppose your own suggestion that he probably has thought patterns similar to our own.
It is not silly. We have totally different version of God's personality. Your god clearly pursues human thinking,
DAVID: In the bold you directly contradict the beginning of your paragraph, in that you don't accept humans as his prime purpose. Fine. On that we will continuously disagree, as I accept Adler's detailed arguments and you refuse to consider them.dhw: As usual, you dodge the fact that I have offered you two possible explanations of evolution in which God’s prime purpose IS humans. But as above, you reject these as “humanizing”.
They are.
dhw: [..]I propose a variety of explanations for the variety of organisms that preceded H. sapiens. You have accepted that all of them are logical, but you are unable to find any connection between the vast variety of pre-human organisms plus their econiches and your proposal that he only wanted one plus its econiches.DAVID: This fully humanizing discussion of your version of God does not recognize the whole of history. It dwells insufficiently by concentrating solely on life's evolution. Let's start in the beginning. What is your version of why God created the universe? Purpose present or not? Just experimenting? Does He know what He is about? I fully expect your usual humanized unpurposed God.
dhw: And yet again you try to dodge the issue of the disconnection in your theory of evolution! Your questions have been answered umpteen times. If God exists, then of course he had a purpose for creating the universe and life. We are in agreement. Our only disagreement concerns what his purpose was, and how he fulfilled it, so of course we focus on life’s evolution! For some reason, you limit his purpose to the creation of H. sapiens, but you refuse to tell us what was his purpose in creating H. sapiens. And you cannot tell us why, if his only purpose was H. sapiens, he directly created 3.X billion years’ worth of non-humans etc.
My same old answer: God is in charge of the creation of reality. Evolution produced humans, the most unexpected, unusual result as outlined by Adler.
dhw: I offer you various hypotheses – all of which you recognize as logical – which allow for H. sapiens as a prime purpose, or which offer a different purpose, or which offer different interpretations of God’s powers (maybe he experiments, maybe he learns).
All humanizing hypotheses. My God knows exactly what He is doing. No need to learn or experiment.
dhw: But you cling to the only hypothesis which you yourself find inexplicable: that an all-powerful God with a single purpose (H. sapiens) directly designs millions of extinct non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc. before directly designing various non-sapiens before directly designing sapiens, the only thing he wanted to design (apart from sapiens’ econiches). Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.
My God is not your god. That is why the argument is in circles. We are not arguing about the same God. My God has the right to chose to evolve humans from bacteria. Not 'inexplicable' because I have no need to explain it. It is your problem, not mine.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: I accept totally that if God exists, he would have chosen what we see: millions and millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders coming and going for millions and millions of years, and eventually different forms of humans ultimately leading to one species of human. That does not explain why, if he is all-powerful and had only one purpose from the very beginning (H. sapiens), he would have directly designed all those extinct life forms etc. that had nothing to do with humans. So maybe H. sapiens was not his only purpose from the beginning, or maybe if H. sapiens was his purpose from the beginning, everything that preceded humans was part of a great experiment, or maybe the idea for humans only came late on in his thinking.
DAVID: All you have done again is assume humanizing views of what God might have been thinking as He employed evolution to create what He wanted to create.
dhw: Do please drop this silly objection to any theory that “humanizes” God. Nobody knows God’s thoughts, but there is no reason to oppose your own suggestion that he probably has thought patterns similar to our own.
DAVID: It is not silly. We have totally different version of God's personality. Your god clearly pursues human thinking.
I offer different versions. You offer only one, which leads to the illogicality of the bolded theory above. Since we cannot know your God’s personality, how can we exclude the possibility that the creator has certain thought patterns that are similar to those of his creation? You said the same yourself, though now you wish you hadn’t!
DAVID: In the bold you directly contradict the beginning of your paragraph, in that you don't accept humans as his prime purpose. Fine. On that we will continuously disagree, as I accept Adler's detailed arguments and you refuse to consider them.
dhw: As usual, you dodge the fact that I have offered you two possible explanations of evolution in which God’s prime purpose IS humans. But as above, you reject these as “humanizing”.
DAVID: They are.
You were complaining that I didn’t accept humans as God’s prime purpose. I have given you two explanations which DO accept this premise. More dodging!
dhw: If God exists, then of course he had a purpose for creating the universe and life. We are in agreement. Our only disagreement concerns what his purpose was, and how he fulfilled it, so of course we focus on life’s evolution! For some reason, you limit his purpose to the creation of H. sapiens, but you refuse to tell us what was his purpose in creating H. sapiens. And you cannot tell us why, if his only purpose was H. sapiens, he directly created 3.X billion years’ worth of non-humans etc.
DAVID: My same old answer: God is in charge of the creation of reality. Evolution produced humans, the most unexpected, unusual result as outlined by Adler.
Fine. But you keep telling us that H. sapiens was his one and only purpose, so why did he spend 3.X billion years designing anything but the only thing he wanted to design?
dhw: I offer you various hypotheses – all of which you recognize as logical – which allow for H. sapiens as a prime purpose, or which offer a different purpose, or which offer different interpretations of God’s powers (maybe he experiments, maybe he learns).
DAVID: All humanizing hypotheses. My God knows exactly what He is doing. No need to learn or experiment.
A) How do you know? B) Why can't you answer my question?
dhw: Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.
DAVID: My God is not your god. That is why the argument is in circles. We are not arguing about the same God. My God has the right to chose to evolve humans from bacteria. Not 'inexplicable' because I have no need to explain it. It is your problem, not mine.
You know very well that it is not a question of God’s rights but of finding a coherent explanation for the history of evolution. But you are right. I have asked you to provide a link between your different fixed beliefs. You clearly cannot do so, but there is no need for you to answer. I simply shouldn’t question your fixed beliefs.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 16, 2020, 20:14 (1619 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I accept totally that if God exists, he would have chosen what we see: millions and millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders coming and going for millions and millions of years, and eventually different forms of humans ultimately leading to one species of human. That does not explain why, if he is all-powerful and had only one purpose from the very beginning (H. sapiens), he would have directly designed all those extinct life forms etc. that had nothing to do with humans. So maybe H. sapiens was not his only purpose from the beginning, or maybe if H. sapiens was his purpose from the beginning, everything that preceded humans was part of a great experiment, or maybe the idea for humans only came late on in his thinking.
DAVID: We have totally different version of God's personality. Your god clearly pursues human thinking.
dhw: I offer different versions. You offer only one, which leads to the illogicality of the bolded theory above. Since we cannot know your God’s personality, how can we exclude the possibility that the creator has certain thought patterns that are similar to those of his creation? You said the same yourself, though now you wish you hadn’t!
Illogical only to you. My purposeful God uses the process of evolution in each stage from the Big Bang on, enumerated many times previously.
dhw: If God exists, then of course he had a purpose for creating the universe and life. We are in agreement. Our only disagreement concerns what his purpose was, and how he fulfilled it, so of course we focus on life’s evolution! For some reason, you limit his purpose to the creation of H. sapiens, but you refuse to tell us what was his purpose in creating H. sapiens. And you cannot tell us why, if his only purpose was H. sapiens, he directly created 3.X billion years’ worth of non-humans etc.DAVID: My same old answer: God is in charge of the creation of reality. Evolution produced humans, the most unexpected, unusual result as outlined by Adler.
dhw: Fine. But you keep telling us that H. sapiens was his one and only purpose, so why did he spend 3.X billion years designing anything but the only thing he wanted to design?
As usual because humans were the end goal of the evolutionary process He prefers to use, as noted above.
dhw: I offer you various hypotheses – all of which you recognize as logical – which allow for H. sapiens as a prime purpose, or which offer a different purpose, or which offer different interpretations of God’s powers (maybe he experiments, maybe he learns).DAVID: All humanizing hypotheses. My God knows exactly what He is doing. No need to learn or experiment.
dhw: A) How do you know? B) Why can't you answer my question?
As below, because you cannot accept the God I believe exists.
dhw: Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.DAVID: My God is not your god. That is why the argument is in circles. We are not arguing about the same God. My God has the right to chose to evolve humans from bacteria. Not 'inexplicable' because I have no need to explain it. It is your problem, not mine.
dhw: You know very well that it is not a question of God’s rights but of finding a coherent explanation for the history of evolution. But you are right. I have asked you to provide a link between your different fixed beliefs. You clearly cannot do so, but there is no need for you to answer. I simply shouldn’t question your fixed beliefs.
Your non-acceptance of God leads you to incoherent thoughts about my view of God. It seems that you can only think of Him as having human problems in running evolution without a direct purpose, so He experiments or changes his mind in mid stream with humans a late thought.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: I accept totally that if God exists, he would have chosen what we see: millions and millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders coming and going for millions and millions of years, and eventually different forms of humans ultimately leading to one species of human. That does not explain why, if he is all-powerful and had only one purpose from the very beginning (H. sapiens), he would have directly designed all those extinct life forms etc. that had nothing to do with humans. So maybe H. sapiens was not his only purpose from the beginning, or maybe if H. sapiens was his purpose from the beginning, everything that preceded humans was part of a great experiment, or maybe the idea for humans only came late on in his thinking.
DAVID: We have totally different version of God's personality. Your god clearly pursues human thinking.
dhw: I offer different versions. You offer only one, which leads to the illogicality of the bolded theory above. Since we cannot know your God’s personality, how can we exclude the possibility that the creator has certain thought patterns that are similar to those of his creation? You said the same yourself, though now you wish you hadn’t!
DAVID: Illogical only to you. My purposeful God uses the process of evolution in each stage from the Big Bang on, enumerated many times previously.
Yes, he uses evolution. What is not logical is that he uses evolution to produce millions of now extinct life forms etc. although his one and only purpose is to produce H. sapiens! Please stop dodging.
DAVID: (under “congenital defects”) Or His tight control allowed the mistakes to happen because He anticipated our giant brain would solve the problems that appeared!
dhw: As usual, you seem to think life began with humans. And I really don’t see how “allowing mistakes to happen” ties in with tight control – but I’m not going to quarrel with your proposal that that he might not have tightly controlled evolution and might have “let it go on purposely”. That is one of the various explanations I have offered for the higgledy-piggledy history of evolution.
DAVID: It is easiest to discuss our problems which we know as current events. You are right the history is higgledy-piggledy, but I see purpose in creating the necessary econiches and your god is usually not that purposeful.
My version of God is that he was always purposeful. You cannot tell me the purpose of creating econiches for 3.X million years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms if his one and only purpose was to create humans and their econiches. And I keep offering you different hypotheses that link possible purposes with life’s history, and I even offer you a possible purpose for the creation of H. sapiens. What is the point of your constantly saying how purposeful your God is if you can’t tell us what that purpose might be?
DAVID: […] All we know is that there are biological errors in any living system operating at such high speed, and controls designed into it cannot stop everyone of them. That leaves us with: God did the best He could, and any better is impossible considering the necessary complexity of living organisms. I'll accept that.
dhw: Well, if you can accept that God did the best he could but he couldn’t avoid making mistakes (how extraordinarily human of him), I don’t see why you can’t accept the possibility that life’s bush was the product of his experiments, or H. sapiens came late on in his thinking. Why is that more “human” than making mistakes?
DAVID: I didn't say the biological errors were God's mistakes, but implied it is probably impossible for a high speed biochemical system to always be perfect. God cannot achieve that result which requires perfect molecular reactions at all times.
Since your God is supposed to have created absolutely everything from scratch, how can errors not be his? Once again, why is this fallibility less “humanizing” than experimentation, or having new ideas as he goes along?
[…]
dhw: Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.
DAVID: Your non-acceptance of God leads you to incoherent thoughts about my view of God. It seems that you can only think of Him as having human problems in running evolution without a direct purpose, so He experiments or changes his mind in mid stream with humans a late thought.
Again, you dodge the issue of the missing link between the purpose you impose on your God and the history of life. My agnosticism is irrelevant. The object of this forum is to look for explanations of life that make sense, which is why we constantly test all the explanations on offer, as I keep doing. You have accepted that all my hypotheses logically link God’s possible purpose with life’s history. Yours doesn’t. But of course you have every right to believe what you want to believe.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 17, 2020, 18:29 (1618 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Illogical only to you. My purposeful God uses the process of evolution in each stage from the Big Bang on, enumerated many times previously.
dhw: Yes, he uses evolution. What is not logical is that he uses evolution to produce millions of now extinct life forms etc. although his one and only purpose is to produce H. sapiens! Please stop dodging.
It is your dodge, not mine. If He uses evolution, as you agree, then the history of evolution is the evidence you should accept. Yet inexplicably you don't. Weird reasoning.
DAVID: It is easiest to discuss our problems which we know as current events. You are right the history is higgledy-piggledy, but I see purpose in creating the necessary econiches and your god is usually not that purposeful.dhw: My version of God is that he was always purposeful. You cannot tell me the purpose of creating econiches for 3.X million years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms if his one and only purpose was to create humans and their econiches. And I keep offering you different hypotheses that link possible purposes with life’s history, and I even offer you a possible purpose for the creation of H. sapiens. What is the point of your constantly saying how purposeful your God is if you can’t tell us what that purpose might be?
Another bolded non-sequitur. His ultimate goal and purpose is humans, as always stated.
DAVID: I didn't say the biological errors were God's mistakes, but implied it is probably impossible for a high speed biochemical system to always be perfect. God cannot achieve that result which requires perfect molecular reactions at all times.dhw: Since your God is supposed to have created absolutely everything from scratch, how can errors not be his? Once again, why is this fallibility less “humanizing” than experimentation, or having new ideas as he goes along?
The errors are due to the high speed molecules making mistakes, not God's mistakes. Please note living biochemistry has many mistake screening backups in place, designed by God who knew mistakes would happen.
[…]
dhw: Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.DAVID: Your non-acceptance of God leads you to incoherent thoughts about my view of God. It seems that you can only think of Him as having human problems in running evolution without a direct purpose, so He experiments or changes his mind in mid stream with humans a late thought.
dhw: Again, you dodge the issue of the missing link between the purpose you impose on your God and the history of life. My agnosticism is irrelevant. The object of this forum is to look for explanations of life that make sense, which is why we constantly test all the explanations on offer, as I keep doing. You have accepted that all my hypotheses logically link God’s possible purpose with life’s history. Yours doesn’t. But of course you have every right to believe what you want to believe.
My theory of God running evolution is the acceptance of a need for a designer. I've accepted your reasoning by describing it as humanized reasoning imposed on God without evidence. You've constantly agreed God theoretically ran evolution, and the constantly refuse to accept historical evidence from what we know of evolution itself. Humans were the endpoint of that history, weren't they? You keep asking why God didn't bring them in earlier. He didn't. Accept that, because it is true. Purpose can be long term, without immediate satisfaction. Again what you want from God is a humanized expectation.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: My purposeful God uses the process of evolution in each stage from the Big Bang on, enumerated many times previously.
dhw: Yes, he uses evolution. What is not logical is that he uses evolution to produce millions of now extinct life forms etc. although his one and only purpose is to produce H. sapiens! Please stop dodging.
DAVID: It is your dodge, not mine. If He uses evolution, as you agree, then the history of evolution is the evidence you should accept. Yet inexplicably you don't. Weird reasoning.
And the history of evolution shows us 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms etc., which you constantly dodge because you cannot explain why your all-powerful God would have directly designed them although the only thing he wanted to directly design was us.
DAVID: It is easiest to discuss our problems which we know as current events. You are right the history is higgledy-piggledy, but I see purpose in creating the necessary econiches and your god is usually not that purposeful.
dhw: […] What is the point of your constantly saying how purposeful your God is if you can’t tell us what that purpose might be?
DAVID: Another bolded non-sequitur. His ultimate goal and purpose is humans, as always stated.
You cannot tell us the purpose of the 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms, and you refuse to tell us the purpose of your God’s creation of humans. I offer you a clear purpose for both. It is hardly a non sequitur to ask what your purposeful God’s purpose might have been for two of the key factors of life’s history.
DAVID: I didn't say the biological errors were God's mistakes, but implied it is probably impossible for a high speed biochemical system to always be perfect. God cannot achieve that result which requires perfect molecular reactions at all times.
dhw: Since your God is supposed to have created absolutely everything from scratch, how can errors not be his? Once again, why is this fallibility less “humanizing” than experimentation, or having new ideas as he goes along?
DAVID: The errors are due to the high speed molecules making mistakes, not God's mistakes. Please note living biochemistry has many mistake screening backups in place, designed by God who knew mistakes would happen.
The system God invented from scratch makes mistakes. But God himself doesn’t make mistakes. He just knew that the system he had created from scratch would make mistakes. And this is not “humanizing”, whereas a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along is impossible, because God always knows exactly what he’s doing and is always in control.
[…]
dhw: Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.
[…]
DAVID: My theory of God running evolution is the acceptance of a need for a designer. I've accepted your reasoning by describing it as humanized reasoning imposed on God without evidence. You've constantly agreed God theoretically ran evolution, and the constantly refuse to accept historical evidence from what we know of evolution itself.
What we know includes the 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. which you refuse to include in all your arguments. There is no “evidence” to prove any of the theories, including your own.
DAVID: Humans were the endpoint of that history, weren't they? You keep asking why God didn't bring them in earlier. He didn't. Accept that, because it is true. Purpose can be long term, without immediate satisfaction. Again what you want from God is a humanized expectation.
I do not keep asking why he didn’t bring them in earlier! I keep asking why he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms if his only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and he could have done so any way he wished! When asking this question, I am not wanting anything from God. I am wanting your explanation for a part of your theory that has no coherence. My alternative, logical explanations cover different interpretations of life’s history coupled with different interpretations of your God’s purpose. Whether these are humanized or not is irrelevant, since nobody can possibly know to what extent your God has thought patterns similar to our own.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, June 18, 2020, 19:22 (1617 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It is your dodge, not mine. If He uses evolution, as you agree, then the history of evolution is the evidence you should accept. Yet inexplicably you don't. Weird reasoning.
dhw: And the history of evolution shows us 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms etc., which you constantly dodge because you cannot explain why your all-powerful God would have directly designed them although the only thing he wanted to directly design was us.
No dodge, just following evolution's history, as God's choice of methodology, which you accept and then don't accept. The giant existing bush provides the food energy necessary for survival, all logical.
dhw: You cannot tell us the purpose of the 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms, and you refuse to tell us the purpose of your God’s creation of humans.
I can only guess at his purpose, as I have done many times in the past. You've quoted me!
DAVID: The errors are due to the high speed molecules making mistakes, not God's mistakes. Please note living biochemistry has many mistake screening backups in place, designed by God who knew mistakes would happen.
dhw: The system God invented from scratch makes mistakes. But God himself doesn’t make mistakes. He just knew that the system he had created from scratch would make mistakes. And this is not “humanizing”, whereas a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along is impossible, because God always knows exactly what he’s doing and is always in control.
All I have said is God's control of mistakes has limits.
dhw: Please, either find a logical connection or admit (once more) that there isn't one, and then we can stop going round in circles.
[…]
DAVID: My theory of God running evolution is the acceptance of a need for a designer. I've accepted your reasoning by describing it as humanized reasoning imposed on God without evidence. You've constantly agreed God theoretically ran evolution, and the constantly refuse to accept historical evidence from what we know of evolution itself.dhw: What we know includes the 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. which you refuse to include in all your arguments. There is no “evidence” to prove any of the theories, including your own.
Absolute proof, which you always require, does not exist. Choice involves reason with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
DAVID: Humans were the endpoint of that history, weren't they? You keep asking why God didn't bring them in earlier. He didn't. Accept that, because it is true. Purpose can be long term, without immediate satisfaction. Again what you want from God is a humanized expectation.dhw: I do not keep asking why he didn’t bring them in earlier! I keep asking why he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms if his only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and he could have done so any way he wished!
Once again, your version of God does not allow Him to make a choice of method.
dhw: When asking this question, I am not wanting anything from God. I am wanting your explanation for a part of your theory that has no coherence. My alternative, logical explanations cover different interpretations of life’s history coupled with different interpretations of your God’s purpose. Whether these are humanized or not is irrelevant, since nobody can possibly know to what extent your God has thought patterns similar to our own.
I agree with you. We cannot know God's exact thoughts, or His reasons for His purposes. I have my reasonable theory being careful not to apply any human reasoning to God's thoughts. It is an entirely coherent theory, because what I do is just look to what Adler and I see as his prime purpose, humans, whose arrival cannot be explained in any other way than God did it. Let me ask you, since you never offer an opinion, please explain why we are here, with both of us recognizing we evolved from apes.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: It is your dodge, not mine. If He uses evolution, as you agree, then the history of evolution is the evidence you should accept. Yet inexplicably you don't. Weird reasoning.
dhw: And the history of evolution shows us 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms etc., which you constantly dodge because you cannot explain why your all-powerful God would have directly designed them although the only thing he wanted to directly design was us.
DAVID: No dodge, just following evolution's history, as God's choice of methodology, which you accept and then don't accept. The giant existing bush provides the food energy necessary for survival, all logical.
I accept that if God exists, he must have set up the mechanisms for evolution. All bushes, existing and no longer existing, provide energy. How does that explain the above bold? And you say you’re not dodging!
DAVID: The errors are due to the high speed molecules making mistakes, not God's mistakes. Please note living biochemistry has many mistake screening backups in place, designed by God who knew mistakes would happen.
dhw: The system God invented from scratch makes mistakes. But God himself doesn’t make mistakes. He just knew that the system he had created from scratch would make mistakes. And this is not “humanizing”, whereas a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along is impossible, because God always knows exactly what he’s doing and is always in control.
DAVID: All I have said is God's control of mistakes has limits.
And you ignore your own belief that God created the whole system from scratch. If the system he invented contains mistakes, who is responsible for the mistakes? I only ask because until now you’ve always insisted your God is all-powerful, all-knowing, totally in control, and any theory which suggests the contrary is “humanizing”. But making mistakes is apparently not “humanizing”.
DAVID: I've accepted your reasoning by describing it as humanized reasoning imposed on God without evidence.
dhw: There is no “evidence” to prove any of the theories, including your own.
DAVID: Absolute proof, which you always require, does not exist. Choice involves reason with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
It is you who complain that my alternative “humanized” hypotheses are “without evidence”. Of course there is no absolute proof, and I do not require it. But I would love to know what evidence you have “beyond a reasonable doubt” for your belief that your God directly designed 3.x billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, and that he did so although his one and only purpose was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he chose.
DAVID: Once again, your version of God does not allow Him to make a choice of method.
I am not denying God’s right to do whatever he wanted! I am pointing out that YOUR version of his method to achieve YOUR version of his purpose makes no sense. And so you keep dodging the issue.
dhw: […] I am not wanting anything from God. I am wanting your explanation for a part of your theory that has no coherence. My alternative, logical explanations cover different interpretations of life’s history coupled with different interpretations of your God’s purpose. Whether these are humanized or not is irrelevant, since nobody can possibly know to what extent your God has thought patterns similar to our own.
DAVID: I agree with you. We cannot know God's exact thoughts, or His reasons for His purposes. I have my reasonable theory being careful not to apply any human reasoning to God's thoughts. It is an entirely coherent theory, because what I do is just look to what Adler and I see as his prime purpose, humans, whose arrival cannot be explained in any other way than God did it. Let me ask you, since you never offer an opinion, please explain why we are here, with both of us recognizing we evolved from apes.
A new dodge to avoid the incoherence of your theory! And if I answer, you can keep dodging by complaining that my answer “humanizes” God. Firstly, you cannot apply any sort of reasoning to your theory, whose parts are disconnected. Secondly, the complexity of all life forms, including humans, is such that you can and do argue that their arrival “cannot be explained in any other way than God did it”. The design argument is not confined to humans! And thirdly, over and over again I have offered a hypothesis - not an opinion, since I don’t even know if God exists – that if he does exist, he could have created life as a spectacle that he could watch with interest, humans offering by far the most interesting spectacle, with their vast variety of behaviours. But I have no objection to your own hypotheses, offered at different times: a painter enjoying his own paintings, wanting to have his works admired, wanting to have some sort of relationship, and one might add wanting to be worshipped, since that keeps cropping up in religious ceremonies. As for our evolving from apes, I do believe that is true. I don’t know what relevance it is supposed to have to our being God’s one and only purpose (you keep switching to “prime” purpose, but have never told us what other purposes he may have had).
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Friday, June 19, 2020, 15:44 (1616 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The errors are due to the high speed molecules making mistakes, not God's mistakes. Please note living biochemistry has many mistake screening backups in place, designed by God who knew mistakes would happen.
dhw: The system God invented from scratch makes mistakes. But God himself doesn’t make mistakes. He just knew that the system he had created from scratch would make mistakes. And this is not “humanizing”, whereas a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along is impossible, because God always knows exactly what he’s doing and is always in control.
DAVID: All I have said is God's control of mistakes has limits.
dhw: And you ignore your own belief that God created the whole system from scratch. If the system he invented contains mistakes, who is responsible for the mistakes? I only ask because until now you’ve always insisted your God is all-powerful, all-knowing, totally in control, and any theory which suggests the contrary is “humanizing”. But making mistakes is apparently not “humanizing”.
The molecules follow rules of biochemistry. Please note the very high speed can induce errors, not God errors, but functional errors.
DAVID: Absolute proof, which you always require, does not exist. Choice involves reason with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
dhw: It is you who complain that my alternative “humanized” hypotheses are “without evidence”. Of course there is no absolute proof, and I do not require it. But I would love to know what evidence you have “beyond a reasonable doubt” for your belief that your God directly designed 3.x billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, and that he did so although his one and only purpose was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he chose.
You refuse to accept the history of evolution which I use to understand what God in-charge- of-history did.
DAVID: I agree with you. We cannot know God's exact thoughts, or His reasons for His purposes. I have my reasonable theory being careful not to apply any human reasoning to God's thoughts. It is an entirely coherent theory, because what I do is just look to what Adler and I see as his prime purpose, humans, whose arrival cannot be explained in any other way than God did it. Let me ask you, since you never offer an opinion, please explain why we are here, with both of us recognizing we evolved from apes.dhw: A new dodge to avoid the incoherence of your theory! And if I answer, you can keep dodging by complaining that my answer “humanizes” God. Firstly, you cannot apply any sort of reasoning to your theory, whose parts are disconnected. Secondly, the complexity of all life forms, including humans, is such that you can and do argue that their arrival “cannot be explained in any other way than God did it”. The design argument is not confined to humans! And thirdly, over and over again I have offered a hypothesis - not an opinion, since I don’t even know if God exists – that if he does exist, he could have created life as a spectacle that he could watch with interest, humans offering by far the most interesting spectacle, with their vast variety of behaviours. But I have no objection to your own hypotheses, offered at different times: a painter enjoying his own paintings, wanting to have his works admired, wanting to have some sort of relationship, and one might add wanting to be worshipped, since that keeps cropping up in religious ceremonies. As for our evolving from apes, I do believe that is true. I don’t know what relevance it is supposed to have to our being God’s one and only purpose (you keep switching to “prime” purpose, but have never told us what other purposes he may have had).
Your dodge is to ignore the history of evolution. I accept God did it. It is not a dodge on my part to state God wanted to produce humans, and they arrived at the end of the history we know.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: The errors are due to the high speed molecules making mistakes, not God's mistakes. Please note living biochemistry has many mistake screening backups in place, designed by God who knew mistakes would happen.
dhw: The system God invented from scratch makes mistakes. But God himself doesn’t make mistakes. He just knew that the system he had created from scratch would make mistakes. And this is not “humanizing”, whereas a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along is impossible, because God always knows exactly what he’s doing and is always in control.
DAVID: All I have said is God's control of mistakes has limits.
dhw: And you ignore your own belief that God created the whole system from scratch. If the system he invented contains mistakes, who is responsible for the mistakes? I only ask because until now you’ve always insisted your God is all-powerful, all-knowing, totally in control, and any theory which suggests the contrary is “humanizing”. But making mistakes is apparently not “humanizing”.
DAVID: The molecules follow rules of biochemistry. Please note the very high speed can induce errors, not God errors, but functional errors.
If an inventor invents a system which contains functional errors, do you blame the system or the inventor? But please note: I have no trouble with the concept of a God who makes errors, or even with a God who deliberately builds errors into his inventions. I am merely pointing out that a God who makes errors is no less “human” than a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along.
DAVID: Absolute proof, which you always require, does not exist. Choice involves reason with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
dhw: It is you who complain that my alternative “humanized” hypotheses are “without evidence”. Of course there is no absolute proof, and I do not require it. But I would love to know what evidence you have “beyond a reasonable doubt” for your belief that your God directly designed 3.x billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, and that he did so although his one and only purpose was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he chose.
DAVID: You refuse to accept the history of evolution which I use to understand what God in-charge- of-history did.
And later:
Your dodge is to ignore the history of evolution. I accept God did it. It is not a dodge on my part to state God wanted to produce humans, and they arrived at the end of the history we know.
For the umpteenth time, the history of evolution is the coming and going of millions of life forms, econiches etc., with humans arriving at the end of the history we know. If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3).
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, June 20, 2020, 19:38 (1615 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: All I have said is God's control of mistakes has limits.
dhw: And you ignore your own belief that God created the whole system from scratch. If the system he invented contains mistakes, who is responsible for the mistakes? I only ask because until now you’ve always insisted your God is all-powerful, all-knowing, totally in control, and any theory which suggests the contrary is “humanizing”. But making mistakes is apparently not “humanizing”.
DAVID: The molecules follow rules of biochemistry. Please note the very high speed can induce errors, not God errors, but functional errors.
dhw: If an inventor invents a system which contains functional errors, do you blame the system or the inventor? But please note: I have no trouble with the concept of a God who makes errors, or even with a God who deliberately builds errors into his inventions. I am merely pointing out that a God who makes errors is no less “human” than a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along.
God does not make the errors, rapidly reacting molecules do. The living body is not a rigid machine in any sense of the word. It can't be repaired like an auto. The biochemistry of life involves thousands of highly integrated molecular reactions. There are designed error corrections as in DNA production, but some are missed and become new mutations or congenital defects. I don't believe a perfect biological system can exist, considering all the multiple non-fixed moving parts in each and every reaction.
DAVID: Absolute proof, which you always require, does not exist. Choice involves reason with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.dhw: It is you who complain that my alternative “humanized” hypotheses are “without evidence”. Of course there is no absolute proof, and I do not require it. But I would love to know what evidence you have “beyond a reasonable doubt” for your belief that your God directly designed 3.x billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, and that he did so although his one and only purpose was to design H. sapiens, which he could have done any way he chose.
DAVID: You refuse to accept the history of evolution which I use to understand what God in-charge- of-history did.
And later:
Your dodge is to ignore the history of evolution. I accept God did it. It is not a dodge on my part to state God wanted to produce humans, and they arrived at the end of the history we know.dhw: For the umpteenth time, the history of evolution is the coming and going of millions of life forms, econiches etc., with humans arriving at the end of the history we know. If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3).
It is your problem entirely. I accept God, you don't, and you have no reason to follow my logic to my end point. Don't try if you cannot. The bold is my belief, and your three objections are all yours because you do not accept the bold. Is there any more to discuss on this point?
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: The molecules follow rules of biochemistry. Please note the very high speed can induce errors, not God errors, but functional errors.
dhw: If an inventor invents a system which contains functional errors, do you blame the system or the inventor? But please note: I have no trouble with the concept of a God who makes errors, or even with a God who deliberately builds errors into his inventions. I am merely pointing out that a God who makes errors is no less “human” than a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along.
DAVID: God does not make the errors, rapidly reacting molecules do. The living body is not a rigid machine in any sense of the word. It can't be repaired like an auto. The biochemistry of life involves thousands of highly integrated molecular reactions. There are designed error corrections as in DNA production, but some are missed and become new mutations or congenital defects. I don't believe a perfect biological system can exist, considering all the multiple non-fixed moving parts in each and every reaction.
I am fully and sometimes painfully aware of the fact that the living body contains countless parts that can go wrong! And I am perfectly happy with your belief that your all-powerful God was incapable of making a body that didn’t go wrong. I am simply pointing out that your interpretation limits his powers, and I don’t understand why you regard this is less “humanizing” than a God who experiments and/or learns as he goes along.
dhw: For the umpteenth time, the history of evolution is the coming and going of millions of life forms, econiches etc., with humans arriving at the end of the history we know. If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3).
DAVID:It is your problem entirely. I accept God, you don't, and you have no reason to follow my logic to my end point. Don't try if you cannot. The bold is my belief, and your three objections are all yours because you do not accept the bold. Is there any more to discuss on this point?
I have accepted your bolded belief, but your bolded belief did not include the three beliefs which are subjective interpretations of your God’s nature, purpose and method. My agnosticism is irrelevant, and I have offered alternative theistic explanations of evolution which you accept as logical. You reject these, and cling to the three subjective beliefs although you cannot find a logical link between the first two and the third. THAT, and not the bold, is the subject under discussion.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, June 21, 2020, 15:30 (1614 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The molecules follow rules of biochemistry. Please note the very high speed can induce errors, not God errors, but functional errors.
dhw: If an inventor invents a system which contains functional errors, do you blame the system or the inventor? But please note: I have no trouble with the concept of a God who makes errors, or even with a God who deliberately builds errors into his inventions. I am merely pointing out that a God who makes errors is no less “human” than a God who experiments or who has new ideas as he goes along.
DAVID: God does not make the errors, rapidly reacting molecules do. The living body is not a rigid machine in any sense of the word. It can't be repaired like an auto. The biochemistry of life involves thousands of highly integrated molecular reactions. There are designed error corrections as in DNA production, but some are missed and become new mutations or congenital defects. I don't believe a perfect biological system can exist, considering all the multiple non-fixed moving parts in each and every reaction.
dhw: nI am fully and sometimes painfully aware of the fact that the living body contains countless parts that can go wrong! And I am perfectly happy with your belief that your all-powerful God was incapable of making a body that didn’t go wrong. I am simply pointing out that your interpretation limits his powers, and I don’t understand why you regard this is less “humanizing” than a God who experiments and/or learns as he goes along.
What you are saying is that if God can't make perfect errorless biochemistry of life, He is imperfect and therefore human. But there is no errorless biochemistry. With all He has created perfectly He is not human and has no humanized thinking as you describe, as in experimenting .
dhw: For the umpteenth time, the history of evolution is the coming and going of millions of life forms, econiches etc., with humans arriving at the end of the history we know. If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3).DAVID:It is your problem entirely. I accept God, you don't, and you have no reason to follow my logic to my end point. Don't try if you cannot. The bold is my belief, and your three objections are all yours because you do not accept the bold. Is there any more to discuss on this point?
dhw: I have accepted your bolded belief, but your bolded belief did not include the three beliefs which are subjective interpretations of your God’s nature, purpose and method. My agnosticism is irrelevant, and I have offered alternative theistic explanations of evolution which you accept as logical. You reject these, and cling to the three subjective beliefs although you cannot find a logical link between the first two and the third. THAT, and not the bold, is the subject under discussion.
Your same illogical objection. You constantly disallow God's right to choose a method of evolution. We stay in full disagreement with no resolution.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: I am fully and sometimes painfully aware of the fact that the living body contains countless parts that can go wrong! And I am perfectly happy with your belief that your all-powerful God was incapable of making a body that didn’t go wrong. I am simply pointing out that your interpretation limits his powers, and I don’t understand why you regard this is less “humanizing” than a God who experiments and/or learns as he goes along.
DAVID: What you are saying is that if God can't make perfect errorless biochemistry of life, He is imperfect and therefore human. But there is no errorless biochemistry. With all He has created perfectly He is not human and has no humanized thinking as you describe, as in experimenting.
He has “created perfectly” an error-strewn system! That’s a new definition of perfection! If God exists, he created biochemistry. We know that there is no errorless biochemistry, so God created biochemistry with errors. If you say he was incapable of creating errorless biochemistry, you are limiting his powers. Nobody in his right mind would claim that God is human, but you have absolutely no inside knowledge enabling you to claim that he does not have some thought patterns similar to ours – as you stated categorically and keep struggling to forget – or that he has not been experimenting, or learning as he goes along. These theistic hypotheses are no more subjective, speculative and unprovable than your three fixed beliefs listed below.
dhw: For the umpteenth time, the history of evolution is the coming and going of millions of life forms, econiches etc., with humans arriving at the end of the history we know. If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3).
DAVID:It is your problem entirely. I accept God, you don't, and you have no reason to follow my logic to my end point. Don't try if you cannot. The bold is my belief, and your three objections are all yours because you do not accept the bold. Is there any more to discuss on this point?
And DAVID: You constantly disallow God's right to choose a method of evolution. We stay in full disagreement with no resolution.
I have accepted the bolded belief, and since I believe evolution happened, it would be absurd to disallow your God’s right to choose a method of evolution! That is not the subject in dispute, and my agnosticism is totally irrelevant. I have pointed out that your three fixed beliefs create an unanswerable problem of logic, whereas you agree that all my alternative theistic explanations of your God’s method of evolution are perfectly logical. But they entail the sacrifice of one or other of your fixed beliefs, none of which are grounded in the history. Even if you reject my alternatives on the grounds that they entail human patterns of thought similar to ours – although you agree that your God probably has human patterns of thought similar to ours – that is still no solution to the logical problem (still being dodged) posed by the three irreconcilable hypotheses on which your theory of evolution is based.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, June 22, 2020, 18:07 (1613 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: What you are saying is that if God can't make perfect errorless biochemistry of life, He is imperfect and therefore human. But there is no errorless biochemistry. With all He has created perfectly He is not human and has no humanized thinking as you describe, as in experimenting.
dhw: He has “created perfectly” an error-strewn system! That’s a new definition of perfection! If God exists, he created biochemistry. We know that there is no errorless biochemistry, so God created biochemistry with errors. If you say he was incapable of creating errorless biochemistry, you are limiting his powers.
No I'm not. What I have stated is living biochemistry cannot be errorless and even God can't do it. Errors are not built in. They are chance unfortunate events from high speed molecular reactions. What God has done in anticipation is corrective measures are in place, some of which work and some don't or can't.
dhw: For the umpteenth time, the history of evolution is the coming and going of millions of life forms, econiches etc., with humans arriving at the end of the history we know. If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3).
DAVID:It is your problem entirely. I accept God, you don't, and you have no reason to follow my logic to my end point. Don't try if you cannot. The bold is my belief, and your three objections are all yours because you do not accept the bold. Is there any more to discuss on this point?
And DAVID: You constantly disallow God's right to choose a method of evolution. We stay in full disagreement with no resolution.
dhw: I have accepted the bolded belief, and since I believe evolution happened, it would be absurd to disallow your God’s right to choose a method of evolution! That is not the subject in dispute, and my agnosticism is totally irrelevant. I have pointed out that your three fixed beliefs create an unanswerable problem of logic, whereas you agree that all my alternative theistic explanations of your God’s method of evolution are perfectly logical.
Logical only at a human level of thought!
dhw: But they entail the sacrifice of one or other of your fixed beliefs, none of which are grounded in the history. Even if you reject my alternatives on the grounds that they entail human patterns of thought similar to ours – although you agree that your God probably has human patterns of thought similar to ours – that is still no solution to the logical problem (still being dodged) posed by the three irreconcilable hypotheses on which your theory of evolution is based.
Only illogical to you. I fully believe God's final purpose was the production of humans as proven for me by "The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes". That answers objection (2). (1) is a result of observation of all God has created from the universe to us. Your (3) makes no sense since you agree God created all history and all of evolutionary history is relevant to producing humans\ by evolution, a method you agree He might have chosen.
As before, there is no resolution to this debate as you are totally illogical about my logical reasoning following my acceptance that God exists, has humans as His primary purpose and is in charge. What you are doing is calling my faith illogical.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: What you are saying is that if God can't make perfect errorless biochemistry of life, He is imperfect and therefore human. But there is no errorless biochemistry. With all He has created perfectly He is not human and has no humanized thinking as you describe, as in experimenting.
dhw: He has “created perfectly” an error-strewn system! That’s a new definition of perfection! If God exists, he created biochemistry. We know that there is no errorless biochemistry, so God created biochemistry with errors. If you say he was incapable of creating errorless biochemistry, you are limiting his powers.
DAVID: No I'm not. What I have stated is living biochemistry cannot be errorless and even God can't do it. Errors are not built in. They are chance unfortunate events from high speed molecular reactions. What God has done in anticipation is corrective measures are in place, some of which work and some don't or can't.
“Even God can’t do it” and some of his corrective measures don’t work, but you are not limiting God’s powers!
dhw: If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3). […]
dhw: I have pointed out that your three fixed beliefs create an unanswerable problem of logic, whereas you agree that all my alternative theistic explanations of your God’s method of evolution are perfectly logical.
DAVID: Logical only at a human level of thought!
Are you claiming that you think at a divine level?
DAVID: Only illogical to you. I fully believe God's final purpose was the production of humans as proven for me by "The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes". That answers objection (2).
(2) is not an objection! It is your belief, and it is NOT illogical in itself.
DAVID: (1) is a result of observation of all God has created from the universe to us.
Again, not illogical in itself.
DAVID: Your (3) makes no sense since you agree God created all history and all of evolutionary history is relevant to producing humans\ by evolution, a method you agree He might have chosen.
It is your (3) not mine, and what emphatically does NOT make sense is your claim that the direct design of 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, econiches etc. is “relevant to producing humans”. Once more you are trying to gloss over the fact that no matter how feasible each of your three individual beliefs may appear, you cannot explain why your God would have chosen (3) if (1) and (2) are true.
DAVID: As before, there is no resolution to this debate as you are totally illogical about my logical reasoning following my acceptance that God exists, has humans as His primary purpose and is in charge. What you are doing is calling my faith illogical.
Yet again you have left out (3), which makes your interpretation of evolution illogical. Nothing to do with your faith. Once and for all, please tell us why you think your all-powerful God, who had only one purpose (H. sapiens), directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human forms, econiches, natural wonders etc. before directly designing the only thing he wanted to design. If you can’t explain it, then please don’t pretend it is logical.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 23, 2020, 19:49 (1612 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: No I'm not. What I have stated is living biochemistry cannot be errorless and even God can't do it. Errors are not built in. They are chance unfortunate events from high speed molecular reactions. What God has done in anticipation is corrective measures are in place, some of which work and some don't or can't.
dhw: “Even God can’t do it” and some of his corrective measures don’t work, but you are not limiting God’s powers!
In that sense He is limited, but it is the nature of the system.
dhw: If God exists, then God caused the history. You are on perfectly logical ground. What is not history but is personal interpretation of history is that 1) God is all-powerful and all-knowing and always in control; 2) God’s one and only purpose right from the start was to produce H. sapiens; 3) God directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, econiches etc., which have no conceivable relevance to the one and only life form you say he wanted to produce. The “dodge” is illustrated by your statements above, which manage to leave out all three of these fixed beliefs, and therefore leave out the insoluble problem of combining 1) and 2) with 3), because if 1) and 2) are true, you cannot explain why he would have done 3). […]dhw: I have pointed out that your three fixed beliefs create an unanswerable problem of logic, whereas you agree that all my alternative theistic explanations of your God’s method of evolution are perfectly logical.
DAVID: Logical only at a human level of thought!
dhw: Are you claiming that you think at a divine level?
No I don't . You know full well I think your "God" thoughts are humanizing
DAVID: Your (3) makes no sense since you agree God created all history and all of evolutionary history is relevant to producing humans\ by evolution, a method you agree He might have chosen.
dhw: It is your (3) not mine, and what emphatically does NOT make sense is your claim that the direct design of 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, econiches etc. is “relevant to producing humans”. Once more you are trying to gloss over the fact that no matter how feasible each of your three individual beliefs may appear, you cannot explain why your God would have chosen (3) if (1) and (2) are true.
DAVID: As before, there is no resolution to this debate as you are totally illogical about my logical reasoning following my acceptance that God exists, has humans as His primary purpose and is in charge. What you are doing is calling my faith illogical.
dhw: Yet again you have left out (3), which makes your interpretation of evolution illogical. Nothing to do with your faith. Once and for all, please tell us why you think your all-powerful God, who had only one purpose (H. sapiens), directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human forms, econiches, natural wonders etc. before directly designing the only thing he wanted to design. If you can’t explain it, then please don’t pretend it is logical.
There it is. Your same disconnect. I cannot and do not know why God chose to evolve us!!! Your inference is constantly: why not direct creation? I have no idea why or why not. I cannot read his mind, and neither can you or anyone. God is in charge of all history, and that tells us what He decided to do. No more thought involved. I don't know why you are constantly puzzled about it.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: What I have stated is living biochemistry cannot be errorless and even God can't do it. Errors are not built in. They are chance unfortunate events from high speed molecular reactions. What God has done in anticipation is corrective measures are in place, some of which work and some don't or can't.
dhw: “Even God can’t do it” and some of his corrective measures don’t work, but you are not limiting God’s powers!
DAVID: In that sense He is limited, but it is the nature of the system.
He created the system! And yes, if he can’t do something, that means he is limited in any “sense”.
dhw: I have pointed out that your three fixed beliefs create an unanswerable problem of logic, whereas you agree that all my alternative theistic explanations of your God’s method of evolution are perfectly logical.
DAVID: Logical only at a human level of thought!
dhw: Are you claiming that you think at a divine level?
DAVID: No I don't . You know full well I think your "God" thoughts are humanizing.
And you know full well that we cannot know your God’s nature, which means we cannot rule out the possibility (or even probability, as you once stated quite explicitly) that he has thought patterns similar to our own. In any case my “humanizing” is no defence of your illogicality.
dhw: Yet again you have left out (3), which makes your interpretation of evolution illogical. Nothing to do with your faith. Once and for all, please tell us why you think your all-powerful God, who had only one purpose (H. sapiens), directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human forms, econiches, natural wonders etc. before directly designing the only thing he wanted to design. If you can’t explain it, then please don’t pretend it is logical.
DAVID: There it is. Your same disconnect. I cannot and do not know why God chose to evolve us!!! Your inference is constantly: why not direct creation? I have no idea why or why not. I cannot read his mind, and neither can you or anyone. God is in charge of all history, and that tells us what He decided to do. No more thought involved. I don't know why you are constantly puzzled about it.
It is your disconnect, not mine, and your comment is yet another evasion. Firstly, your idea of “evolution” is direct creation – you insist that he directly created every species, econiche and natural wonder in life’s history. Secondly, the question is not why he chose to “evolve” us, but why, despite his all-powerfulness, he chose to directly create 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human forms if his one and only purpose was to create us. But I accept your answer: you don’t know. In other words, you cannot follow the logic of your own theory. And so perhaps your theory is wrong, and perhaps you should not dismiss alternative theistic theories which even you admit ARE logical.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, June 24, 2020, 18:42 (1611 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: In that sense He is limited, but it is the nature of the system.
dhw: He created the system! And yes, if he can’t do something, that means he is limited in any “sense”.
It is a system limit. He created the universe with fine tuning and it produced the Earth and allowed Him to create life on it. No mistakes here. Life is at such a complex level, He cannot stop independent reactions from occurring, because He is not in moment by moment control of the living processes He created. And high speed molecular reactions cannot be perfect.
DAVID: You know full well I think your "God" thoughts are humanizing.dhw: And you know full well that we cannot know your God’s nature, which means we cannot rule out the possibility (or even probability, as you once stated quite explicitly) that he has thought patterns similar to our own. In any case my “humanizing” is no defence of your illogicality.
Your human views of God have nothing to do with my theory.
dhw: Yet again you have left out (3), which makes your interpretation of evolution illogical. Nothing to do with your faith. Once and for all, please tell us why you think your all-powerful God, who had only one purpose (H. sapiens), directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human forms, econiches, natural wonders etc. before directly designing the only thing he wanted to design. If you can’t explain it, then please don’t pretend it is logical.DAVID: There it is. Your same disconnect. I cannot and do not know why God chose to evolve us!!! Your inference is constantly: why not direct creation? I have no idea why or why not. I cannot read his mind, and neither can you or anyone. God is in charge of all history, and that tells us what He decided to do. No more thought involved. I don't know why you are constantly puzzled about it.
dhw: It is your disconnect, not mine, and your comment is yet another evasion. Firstly, your idea of “evolution” is direct creation – you insist that he directly created every species, econiche and natural wonder in life’s history. Secondly, the question is not why he chose to “evolve” us, but why, despite his all-powerfulness, he chose to directly create 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human forms if his one and only purpose was to create us.
Your disconnect is obvious here. Your total complaint is why not direct creation? Why bother with evolution? But evolution happened.
dhw: But I accept your answer: you don’t know. In other words, you cannot follow the logic of your own theory. And so perhaps your theory is wrong, and perhaps you should not dismiss alternative theistic theories which even you admit ARE logical.
There is no logic to develop. Just allow the history to guide us to the generalization, with God is charge, He chose to evolve us. Perfectly logical. And there is no reason for me to know why He made those choices, since as you accept, I cannot know. Thank you.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: In that sense He is limited, but it is the nature of the system.
dhw: He created the system! And yes, if he can’t do something, that means he is limited in any “sense”.
DAVID: It is a system limit. He created the universe with fine tuning and it produced the Earth and allowed Him to create life on it. No mistakes here. Life is at such a complex level, He cannot stop independent reactions from occurring, because He is not in moment by moment control of the living processes He created. And high speed molecular reactions cannot be perfect.
I love it. Thank you. From a God who was in total control, you have graduated to a God who “cannot stop independent reactions from occurring.” I suggest that for “cannot”, we substitute “does not want to”, and this would apply not only to what you call “errors” in the system, but also to all the “living processes he created” by way of evolution. The deliberate creation of mechanisms for "independent reactions" may indeed resolve many of the problems we have been discussing. This is a very welcome change of direction.
DAVID: You know full well I think your "God" thoughts are humanizing.
dhw: And you know full well that we cannot know your God’s nature, which means we cannot rule out the possibility (or even probability, as you once stated quite explicitly) that he has thought patterns similar to our own. In any case my “humanizing” is no defence of your illogicality.
DAVID: Your human views of God have nothing to do with my theory.
True. Those are my logical alternatives to your illogical theory, and your dismissal of them is in itself illogical.
dhw: Firstly, your idea of “evolution” is direct creation – you insist that he directly created every species, econiche and natural wonder in life’s history. Secondly, the question is not why he chose to “evolve” us, but why, despite his all-powerfulness, he chose to directly create 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human forms if his one and only purpose was to create us.
DAVID: Your disconnect is obvious here. Your total complaint is why not direct creation? Why bother with evolution? But evolution happened.
It is you who equate evolution with direct creation. I am perfectly happy with the argument that if God exists, he used the method of evolution to produce every life form including humans. I am not happy with the argument that he directly created every life form including humans, and he did so because he only wanted to create humans.
dhw: But I accept your answer: you don’t know. In other words, you cannot follow the logic of your own theory. And so perhaps your theory is wrong, and perhaps you should not dismiss alternative theistic theories which even you admit ARE logical.
DAVID: There is no logic to develop. Just allow the history to guide us to the generalization, with God is charge, He chose to evolve us. Perfectly logical. And there is no reason for me to know why He made those choices, since as you accept, I cannot know. Thank you.
That he chose to evolve us after evolving 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms is no problem at all. But what you call “those choices” – as bolded above – may not be the choices he made, and THAT is what you cannot know, though you seem to take it for granted that you do. And you cannot find a reason why he would have made the choices you impose on him, whereas there are alternatives which you dismiss although you agree that each of them does provide a logical reason for his choice.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, June 25, 2020, 19:20 (1610 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It is a system limit. He created the universe with fine tuning and it produced the Earth and allowed Him to create life on it. No mistakes here. Life is at such a complex level, He cannot stop independent reactions from occurring, because He is not in moment by moment control of the living processes He created. And high speed molecular reactions cannot be perfect.
dhw: I love it. Thank you. From a God who was in total control, you have graduated to a God who “cannot stop independent reactions from occurring.”
Seizing on nothing. In a living organism, if the wrong reaction occurs, do you expect God to step into that single organism?
dhw:I suggest that for “cannot”, we substitute “does not want to”, and this would apply not only to what you call “errors” in the system, but also to all the “living processes he created” by way of evolution. The deliberate creation of mechanisms for "independent reactions" may indeed resolve many of the problems we have been discussing. This is a very welcome change of direction.
No change of direction. Re-read my comment above.
dhw: Firstly, your idea of “evolution” is direct creation – you insist that he directly created every species, econiche and natural wonder in life’s history. Secondly, the question is not why he chose to “evolve” us, but why, despite his all-powerfulness, he chose to directly create 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human forms if his one and only purpose was to create us.DAVID: Your disconnect is obvious here. Your total complaint is why not direct creation? Why bother with evolution? But evolution happened.
dhw: It is you who equate evolution with direct creation. I am perfectly happy with the argument that if God exists, he used the method of evolution to produce every life form including humans. I am not happy with the argument that he directly created every life form including humans, and he did so because he only wanted to create humans.
I know your unhappiness. Why can't God evolve from simple to complex as history indicates?
dhw: But I accept your answer: you don’t know. In other words, you cannot follow the logic of your own theory. And so perhaps your theory is wrong, and perhaps you should not dismiss alternative theistic theories which even you admit ARE logical.DAVID: There is no logic to develop. Just allow the history to guide us to the generalization, with God is charge, He chose to evolve us. Perfectly logical. And there is no reason for me to know why He made those choices, since as you accept, I cannot know. Thank you.
dhw: That he chose to evolve us after evolving 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms is no problem at all. But what you call “those choices” – as bolded above – may not be the choices he made, and THAT is what you cannot know, though you seem to take it for granted that you do. And you cannot find a reason why he would have made the choices you impose on him, whereas there are alternatives which you dismiss although you agree that each of them does provide a logical reason for his choice.
All I do is follow history , since I accept God in control. The bold is silly. I don't try to figure out a reason, since it is guesswork, and Adler makes the purpose simple to know.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Life is at such a complex level, He cannot stop independent reactions from occurring, because He is not in moment by moment control of the living processes He created. And high speed molecular reactions cannot be perfect.
dhw: I love it. Thank you. From a God who was in total control, you have graduated to a God who “cannot stop independent reactions from occurring.”
DAVID: Seizing on nothing. In a living organism, if the wrong reaction occurs, do you expect God to step into that single organism?
Of course not. You have separated my comment. Read on.
dhw:I suggest that for “cannot”, we substitute “does not want to”, and this would apply not only to what you call “errors” in the system, but also to all the “living processes he created” by way of evolution. The deliberate creation of mechanisms for "independent reactions" may indeed resolve many of the problems we have been discussing. This is a very welcome change of direction.
DAVID: No change of direction. Re-read my comment above.
You have completely missed the point, which is that he has created a system over which he does not have complete control. In the past, your God was in complete control of everything. Once you allow for him NOT being in complete control, you open the door to the theory that he did not WANT to be in complete control (a much more respectful interpretation of your God’s nature and power). Hence the higgledy-piggledy bush of life extant and extinct, as he allows life forms to come and go, autonomously developing their own lifestyles, strategies and natural wonders in response to the ever changing conditions in which they find themselves.
dhw: I am not happy with the argument that he directly created every life form including humans, and he did so because he only wanted to create humans.
DAVID: I know your unhappiness. Why can't God evolve from simple to complex as history indicates?
Of course life evolved from simple to complex. How does that come to mean that he directly designed every life form, and he did so only because he wanted to create humans? Please stop dodging the issue!
dhw: […] you cannot find a reason why he would have made the choices you impose on him, whereas there are alternatives which you dismiss although you agree that each of them does provide a logical reason for his choice.
DAVID: All I do is follow history, since I accept God in control. The bold is silly. I don't try to figure out a reason, since it is guesswork, and Adler makes the purpose simple to know.
You do not follow history when you claim that 1) God is in control (now contradicted by the points raised at the start of this post), 2) that he directly designed every life form, and 3) that he did so for the sole purpose of directly designing H. sapiens! This is all guesswork, and you can’t find a reason that would enable you to link 3) to 1) and 2). And so you go on dodging.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Friday, June 26, 2020, 19:53 (1609 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: No change of direction. Re-read my comment above.
dhw: You have completely missed the point, which is that he has created a system over which he does not have complete control. In the past, your God was in complete control of everything. Once you allow for him NOT being in complete control, you open the door to the theory that he did not WANT to be in complete control (a much more respectful interpretation of your God’s nature and power).
I'm sorry you refuse to accept the fact that God created life and He knew that life would have problems, so He added as many safeguards as He could, but it is a true fact, from my knowledge of living biochemistry I've known all along. And yet I accept God as I describe him, while you blithely ignore all of His other accomplishments.
dhw: I am not happy with the argument that he directly created every life form including humans, and he did so because he only wanted to create humans.DAVID: I know your unhappiness. Why can't God evolve from simple to complex as history indicates?
dhw: Of course life evolved from simple to complex. How does that come to mean that he directly designed every life form, and he did so only because he wanted to create humans? Please stop dodging the issue!
I've not dodged the issue. You refuse to accept what Adler presents as the goal. I don't know why He chose evolution as his method, but it obvious He did. Your objection makes no sense if you accept God is in charge of making the history we know.
dhw: […] you cannot find a reason why he would have made the choices you impose on him, whereas there are alternatives which you dismiss although you agree that each of them does provide a logical reason for his choice.DAVID: All I do is follow history, since I accept God in control. The bold is silly. I don't try to figure out a reason, since it is guesswork, and Adler makes the purpose simple to know.
dhw: You do not follow history when you claim that 1) God is in control (now contradicted by the points raised at the start of this post), 2) that he directly designed every life form, and 3) that he did so for the sole purpose of directly designing H. sapiens! This is all guesswork, and you can’t find a reason that would enable you to link 3) to 1) and 2).
You are dodging facts. God cannot fully control life's high speed reactions perfectly. I've known that all along and should have introduced that concept to you long ago. That disproves nothing else in my view of how God works. Keep seizing on every tidbit you can as you refuse to see God as I do. That is your role as an agnostic and the reason behind this website battle.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: You have completely missed the point, which is that he has created a system over which he does not have complete control. In the past, your God was in complete control of everything. Once you allow for him NOT being in complete control, you open the door to the theory that he did not WANT to be in complete control (a much more respectful interpretation of your God’s nature and power).
DAVID: I'm sorry you refuse to accept the fact that God created life and He knew that life would have problems, so He added as many safeguards as He could, but it is a true fact, from my knowledge of living biochemistry I've known all along. And yet I accept God as I describe him, while you blithely ignore all of His other accomplishments.
For argument’s sake, I am accepting the existence of God, and so I accept that he created life. It is a "true fact" that life has problems. It is pure guesswork on your part that your God was unable to create a system without problems, and that he added safeguards! The theory that he deliberately created a system with problems is a different guess. You also guess that he deliberately designed every single life form and was always in full control of every evolutionary development. I guess that he deliberately designed a mechanism that would enable life forms to do their own designing, and he deliberately did NOT control every evolutionary development (though he may have dabbled when he felt like it). You constantly present your opinions as facts. I don’t know what you are referring to in your last sentence.
DAVID: I know your unhappiness. Why can't God evolve from simple to complex as history indicates?
dhw: Of course life evolved from simple to complex. How does that come to mean that he directly designed every life form, and he did so only because he wanted to create humans? Please stop dodging the issue!
DAVID|: I've not dodged the issue. You refuse to accept what Adler presents as the goal. I don't know why He chose evolution as his method, but it obvious He did. Your objection makes no sense if you accept God is in charge of making the history we know.
I have offered you two explanations of evolution’s history that are based on Adler’s theory. If God exists, then of course I accept that he is responsible for the history we know. But as I wrote yesterday:
dhw: You do not follow history when you claim that 1) God is in control (now contradicted by the points raised at the start of this post), 2) that he directly designed every life form, and 3) that he did so for the sole purpose of directly designing H. sapiens! This is all guesswork, and you can’t find a reason that would enable you to link 3) to 1) and 2).
DAVID: You are dodging facts. God cannot fully control life's high speed reactions perfectly. I've known that all along and should have introduced that concept to you long ago.
Again this is no answer to the above! You have always maintained until now that God is in full control of everything. Your admission that he is not opens the door to a different view of life’s history - you can't just impose your own limits on his lack of control! But please don’t blame yourself. You are beginning to loosen some of the bonds that tie you to your illogical theory of evolution!
DAVID: That disproves nothing else in my view of how God works. Keep seizing on every tidbit you can as you refuse to see God as I do. That is your role as an agnostic and the reason behind this website battle.
I’m not convinced that I see God differently from you. If I believed in him, I would see him as all-powerful and all-purposeful and totally logical in all that he does. What I refuse to see is your combination of 1), 2) and 3) as a believable account of how evolution works.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, June 27, 2020, 18:59 (1608 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I'm sorry you refuse to accept the fact that God created life and He knew that life would have problems, so He added as many safeguards as He could, but it is a true fact, from my knowledge of living biochemistry I've known all along. And yet I accept God as I describe him, while you blithely ignore all of His other accomplishments.
dhw: For argument’s sake, I am accepting the existence of God, and so I accept that he created life. It is a "true fact" that life has problems. It is pure guesswork on your part that your God was unable to create a system without problems, and that he added safeguards!
But that is exactly what the biochemistry of life shows. Safeguard systems exist!
dhw: don’t know what you are referring to in your last sentence.
God created the universe, evolved it, created the Earth, evolved it, created life, evolved it. His accomplishments. But living biochemistry runs at such high speed, individual molecule make mistakes God cannot control, but the safeguard systems show God's anticipation of the problem. Since we are in charge, that is one of the reasons God have us such a powerful brain., so we could solve some of the problems that appear.
DAVID|: You refuse to accept what Adler presents as the goal. I don't know why He chose evolution as his method, but it obvious He did. Your objection makes no sense if you accept God is in charge of making the history we know.
dhw: I have offered you two explanations of evolution’s history that are based on Adler’s theory. If God exists, then of course I accept that he is responsible for the history we know. But as I wrote yesterday:
dhw: You do not follow history when you claim that 1) God is in control (now contradicted by the points raised at the start of this post), 2) that he directly designed every life form, and 3) that he did so for the sole purpose of directly designing H. sapiens! This is all guesswork, and you can’t find a reason that would enable you to link 3) to 1) and 2).
As I stated, you won't accept Adler's logical reasoning. 1,2 and 3 need no linkage if one follows my reasoning based on Adler's theory.
DAVID: That disproves nothing else in my view of how God works. Keep seizing on every tidbit you can as you refuse to see God as I do. That is your role as an agnostic and the reason behind this website battle.
dhw: I’m not convinced that I see God differently from you. If I believed in him, I would see him as all-powerful and all-purposeful and totally logical in all that he does. What I refuse to see is your combination of 1), 2) and 3) as a believable account of how evolution works.
As usual, your refusal makes no sense to me. 1), 2), and 3) work perfectly well together if you conclude God decided to evolve humans from bacteria, and I don't search for an answer as to why He made that choice, to forestall your usual unreasonable query about His reasoning, about which you love to make guesses.
Back to David's theory of evolution; God's lack of control
by David Turell , Saturday, June 27, 2020, 19:51 (1608 days ago) @ David Turell
This articled is about the origin and possible corrections for congenital defects in the genitourinary system:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-genitals-boys-requires-complex-genes.html
"The most common congenital disorders of all, especially in baby boys, are differences in a newborn's sexual anatomy that is not standard female or male. In boys, they include undescended testicles, misplaced urethras, and improperly developed internal organs.
"Some of these disorders may be treated with surgery and some also with hormonal supplementation.
***
"...a male fetus must successfully have testes descend toward the scrotum, differentiate external genitals, and develop internal organs such as the prostate. Much of this process is controlled by a genetic pathway whimsically named Hedgehog—after the gene was discovered in flies covered in bristles—and hormones. The two most important hormones are testosterone and another named INSL3.
"The researchers discovered that the Hedgehog pathway, through GLI3, stimulates the formation of Leydig cells, which produce the hormones necessary to develop male sex organs. And those hormones go on to reinforce the Hedgehog pathway, which is vital for developing the prostate and penis. They concluded that most of the defects in the mutant mice could be explained by dysfunctional Leydig cells.
"Treating pregnant mice with extra testosterone wasn't enough to correct all the defects, because the GLI3 gene was itself necessary, especially for producing a normal penis. But when the researchers reintroduced the non-mutant GLI3 gene into the mutant testes in culture, they were able to restore production of genes necessary for the production of testosterone.
"The upshot is that researchers discovered a complex dance between genes and hormones. Any misstep in the waltz can spell disaster."
Comment: these are errors, missteps, God cannot stop, but humans can work around most of the time.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: I'm sorry you refuse to accept the fact that God created life and He knew that life would have problems, so He added as many safeguards as He could, but it is a true fact, from my knowledge of living biochemistry I've known all along. And yet I accept God as I describe him, while you blithely ignore all of His other accomplishments.
dhw: For argument’s sake, I am accepting the existence of God, and so I accept that he created life. It is a "true fact" that life has problems. It is pure guesswork on your part that your God was unable to create a system without problems, and that he added safeguards!
DAVID: But that is exactly what the biochemistry of life shows. Safeguard systems exist!
The existence of problems could be due to your God WANTING a system with problems (see below under “God’s lack of control”), and the existence of safeguards could be due to his giving cell communities the means to devise their own. This indeed is what you imply when you say below that he gave us our brains so that we could solve the problems he set – only I note that our fellow animals also have immune systems which solve problems.
DAVID: God created the universe, evolved it, created the Earth, evolved it, created life, evolved it. His accomplishments. But living biochemistry runs at such high speed, individual molecule make mistakes God cannot control, but the safeguard systems show God's anticipation of the problem. Since we are in charge, that is one of the reasons God have us such a powerful brain, so we could solve some of the problems that appear.
See above.
dhw: You do not follow history when you claim that 1) God is in control (now contradicted by the points raised at the start of this post), 2) that he directly designed every life form, and 3) that he did so for the sole purpose of directly designing H. sapiens! This is all guesswork, and you can’t find a reason that would enable you to link 3) to 1) and 2).
DAVID: As I stated, you won't accept Adler's logical reasoning. 1,2 and 3 need no linkage if one follows my reasoning based on Adler's theory.
Please stick to your own reasoning, since you have informed us that Adler does not deal with your personal theory of evolution. And yet again, please explain to us why your all-powerful God (who actually isn’t all-powerful when it comes to making mistakes), whose sole purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, directly designed millions of non-human life forms before starting to directly design H. sapiens’ ancestors before directly designing H. sapiens. If you cannot explain the logic of your guess, then please don’t tell us it’s logical because of Adler!
Under the fascinating heading: God's lack of control
QUOTE: “The upshot is that researchers discovered a complex dance between genes and hormones. Any misstep in the waltz can spell disaster."
DAVID: these are errors, missteps, God cannot stop, but humans can work around most of the time.
After all this time in which you insisted that your God was always in control of everything, it’s highly illuminating to see you making a feature of his lack of control. How about considering the possibility that your God did not WANT control, and that he deliberately created a system that would malfunction? Do you really imagine him wanting to specially design millions of organisms that would live for ever and ever and would reproduce more organisms that would live for ever and ever? Endings and new beginnings seem to me to be part of the essence of life – and if life was designed by God as an ever changing spectacle, then of course the system would have to cause endings as well as beginnings. And once more: if your God is not in control of one aspect of evolution – either through weakness or through deliberate choice - why should he not also lack control over other aspects? (I prefer deliberate choice, as I am less convinced than you, in your latest U-turn, that your God makes mistakes.)
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, June 28, 2020, 21:25 (1607 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: But that is exactly what the biochemistry of life shows. Safeguard systems exist!
dhw: The existence of problems could be due to your God WANTING a system with problems (see below under “God’s lack of control”), and the existence of safeguards could be due to his giving cell communities the means to devise their own. This indeed is what you imply when you say below that he gave us our brains so that we could solve the problems he set – only I note that our fellow animals also have immune systems which solve problems.
And animals have no ability to solve problems as we do at the biochemical l evel.
DAVID: As I stated, you won't accept Adler's logical reasoning. 1,2 and 3 need no linkage if one follows my reasoning based on Adler's theory.dhw: Please stick to your own reasoning, since you have informed us that Adler does not deal with your personal theory of evolution. And yet again, please explain to us why your all-powerful God (who actually isn’t all-powerful when it comes to making mistakes), whose sole purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, directly designed millions of non-human life forms before starting to directly design H. sapiens’ ancestors before directly designing H. sapiens. If you cannot explain the logic of your guess, then please don’t tell us it’s logical because of Adler!
Adler is a starting point for my thinking. Evolution interests him only is that it produced us, and his argument compares us to apes. Why can't I think to develop my own theories after recognizing Adler's position and using it as a starting point. He and I accept God, another starting point. You can think logically but I can't because you do not like/accept my starting points? Illogical in and of itself.
Under the fascinating heading: God's lack of control
QUOTE: “The upshot is that researchers discovered a complex dance between genes and hormones. Any misstep in the waltz can spell disaster."DAVID: these are errors, missteps, God cannot stop, but humans can work around most of the time.
dhw: After all this time in which you insisted that your God was always in control of everything, it’s highly illuminating to see you making a feature of his lack of control. How about considering the possibility that your God did not WANT control, and that he deliberately created a system that would malfunction? Do you really imagine him wanting to specially design millions of organisms that would live for ever and ever and would reproduce more organisms that would live for ever and ever? Endings and new beginnings seem to me to be part of the essence of life – and if life was designed by God as an ever changing spectacle, then of course the system would have to cause endings as well as beginnings. And once more: if your God is not in control of one aspect of evolution – either through weakness or through deliberate choice - why should he not also lack control over other aspects? (I prefer deliberate choice, as I am less convinced than you, in your latest U-turn, that your God makes mistakes.)
We should agree to this interpretation: God created living biochemistry in order for life to have a beginning. at the bacterial simple level, the Lenski experiment has been discussed here. It does not appear that at that simple level of existing that anything really goes wrong, but in reproduction (cell-splitting) DNA changes and new mutations appear. God does not/has not supplied a bacterial mechanism to stop those changes. So it can be assumed He allows/allowed them. But at our complex level there are many built in safeguard systems. Thus for me it is easy to see God recognized mistakes would occur and countered what He could. My perfect God cannot design a perfect error-less biochemical living system running at high speed. I have always accepted that. All you want to do is attack poor God as therefore less than adequate. We're back to theodicy as a complaint.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: The existence of problems could be due to your God WANTING a system with problems (see below under “God’s lack of control”), and the existence of safeguards could be due to his giving cell communities the means to devise their own. This indeed is what you imply when you say below that he gave us our brains so that we could solve the problems he set – only I note that our fellow animals also have immune systems which solve problems.
DAVID: And animals have no ability to solve problems as we do at the biochemical level.
Giving us our brains to solve problems doesn’t explain why animals also solve problems. Hence my comment about cell communities generally being able to devise their own solutions.
DAVID: As I stated, you won't accept Adler's logical reasoning. 1,2 and 3 need no linkage if one follows my reasoning based on Adler's theory.
dhw: Please stick to your own reasoning, since you have informed us that Adler does not deal with your personal theory of evolution. And yet again, please explain to us why your all-powerful God (who actually isn’t all-powerful when it comes to making mistakes), whose sole purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, directly designed millions of non-human life forms before starting to directly design H. sapiens’ ancestors before directly designing H. sapiens. If you cannot explain the logic of your guess, then please don’t tell us it’s logical because of Adler!
DAVID: Adler is a starting point for my thinking. Evolution interests him only is that it produced us, and his argument compares us to apes. Why can't I think to develop my own theories after recognizing Adler's position and using it as a starting point. He and I accept God, another starting point. You can think logically but I can't because you do not like/accept my starting points? Illogical in and of itself.
Dodging again. I have accepted the logic of God’s existence and of H. sapiens’ superiority as starting points (accepting the logic does not mean belief, of course), but the theory you have developed from these creates two other starting points: 1) Your God directly designed every life form, and 2) He could have created H. sapiens any way he wanted (because he is all powerful - except when he creates a system full of mistakes – and is in full control of all phases of evolution). These two extra starting points, as you know perfectly well, create the anomaly of a God who has only one purpose (us), but who directly designs millions of non-human life forms before he starts designing our ancestors before he designs us. You don’t know why he chose such a method. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: these are errors, missteps, God cannot stop, but humans can work around most of the time.
dhw: How about considering the possibility that your God did not WANT control, and that he deliberately created a system that would malfunction? Do you really imagine him wanting to specially design millions of organisms that would live for ever and ever and would reproduce more organisms that would live for ever and ever? Endings and new beginnings seem to me to be part of the essence of life – and if life was designed by God as an ever changing spectacle, then of course the system would have to cause endings as well as beginnings. And once more: if your God is not in control of one aspect of evolution – either through weakness or through deliberate choice - why should he not also lack control over other aspects? (I prefer deliberate choice, as I am less convinced than you, in your latest U-turn, that your God makes mistakes.)
DAVID: […] My perfect God cannot design a perfect error-less biochemical living system running at high speed. I have always accepted that. All you want to do is attack poor God as therefore less than adequate. We're back to theodicy as a complaint.
You have completely ignored my proposal above, repeated your own theory, and interpreted my attack on your theory as an attack on your God. It is your theory that offers us a God who is less than adequate and who has built a system which cannot avoid errors. The theory I have presented offers a God who is in total control and knows just what he is doing. Please read it and tell us what you object to.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, June 29, 2020, 18:32 (1606 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As I stated, you won't accept Adler's logical reasoning. 1,2 and 3 need no linkage if one follows my reasoning based on Adler's theory.
dhw: Please stick to your own reasoning, since you have informed us that Adler does not deal with your personal theory of evolution. And yet again, please explain to us why your all-powerful God (who actually isn’t all-powerful when it comes to making mistakes), whose sole purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, directly designed millions of non-human life forms before starting to directly design H. sapiens’ ancestors before directly designing H. sapiens. If you cannot explain the logic of your guess, then please don’t tell us it’s logical because of Adler!
DAVID: Adler is a starting point for my thinking. Evolution interests him only is that it produced us, and his argument compares us to apes. Why can't I think to develop my own theories after recognizing Adler's position and using it as a starting point. He and I accept God, another starting point. You can think logically but I can't because you do not like/accept my starting points? Illogical in and of itself.
dhw: Dodging again. I have accepted the logic of God’s existence and of H. sapiens’ superiority as starting points (accepting the logic does not mean belief, of course), but the theory you have developed from these creates two other starting points: 1) Your God directly designed every life form, and 2) He could have created H. sapiens any way he wanted (because he is all powerful - except when he creates a system full of mistakes – and is in full control of all phases of evolution). These two extra starting points, as you know perfectly well, create the anomaly of a God who has only one purpose (us), but who directly designs millions of non-human life forms before he starts designing our ancestors before he designs us. You don’t know why he chose such a method. Please stop dodging.
No dodging. I have no idea why God chose to evolve us. There is no way to know.
DAVID: these are errors, missteps, God cannot stop, but humans can work around most of the time.dhw: How about considering the possibility that your God did not WANT control, and that he deliberately created a system that would malfunction? Do you really imagine him wanting to specially design millions of organisms that would live for ever and ever and would reproduce more organisms that would live for ever and ever? Endings and new beginnings seem to me to be part of the essence of life – and if life was designed by God as an ever changing spectacle, then of course the system would have to cause endings as well as beginnings. And once more: if your God is not in control of one aspect of evolution – either through weakness or through deliberate choice - why should he not also lack control over other aspects? (I prefer deliberate choice, as I am less convinced than you, in your latest U-turn, that your God makes mistakes.)
DAVID: […] My perfect God cannot design a perfect error-less biochemical living system running at high speed. I have always accepted that. All you want to do is attack poor God as therefore less than adequate. We're back to theodicy as a complaint.
dhw: You have completely ignored my proposal above, repeated your own theory, and interpreted my attack on your theory as an attack on your God. It is your theory that offers us a God who is less than adequate and who has built a system which cannot avoid errors. The theory I have presented offers a God who is in total control and knows just what he is doing. Please read it and tell us what you object to.
My point is there is no God who can create a perfect living biochemical high-speed system. The molecules will occasionally make mistakes. From my training in biochemistry I can state that as a fact. We can make a perfect auto, but after time wear and tear will result in needed repairs. A biological system will have early mistakes and also later wear and tear. You don't have to accept the God that creates a biochemical living system with mistakes. I do. Theodicy is your problem.
Back to David's theory of evolution: garbage systems
by David Turell , Monday, June 29, 2020, 21:33 (1606 days ago) @ David Turell
They are part of the corrective mechanisms to keep cells functional:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-osmotic-stress-cellular-disposal.html
"Cellular waste disposal, where autophagy and lysosomes interact, performs elementary functions, such as degrading damaged protein molecules, which impair cellular function, and reintroducing the resulting building blocks such as amino acids into the metabolic system.
***
"Researchers...have now discovered a previously unknown mechanism: osmotic stress, i.e. a change in water and ionic balance, triggers a response within hours, resulting in the increased formation and activity of autophagosomes and lysosomes.
***
"Our cells are occasionally in need of a "spring clean" so that incorrectly folded protein molecules or damaged cell organelles can be removed, preventing the aggregation of protein molecules. The mechanisms responsible for this removal are so-called "autophagy" and the closely related lysosomal system, the discovery of which earned the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2016.
"Quite a number of studies suggest that autophagy and lysosomes play a central role in aging and in neurodegenerative diseases. It is also generally agreed that fasting or food deprivation can kickstart this cellular degradation and recycling process. Other than that, little is known about how cells and organs control the quality of their protein molecules, and which environmental influences give the decisive signal to start cleaning up.
***
"'When dehydration occurs, we suddenly see more lysosomes in the cells, i.e. more organelles where aggregated protein molecules are degraded," explained co-last author PD Dr. Tanja Maritzen. "It's a clever adaptation because cellular water loss simultaneously fosters the aggregation of proteins. These aggregates must be removed quickly to ensure the continued function of cells, and this works better when cells have more lysosomes."
"The researchers were able to observe what happens at the molecular level in dehydrated cells using astrocytes, star-shaped cells in the brain that assist the work of our nerve cells: in the event of dehydration, the ion transporter NHE7 translocates from the cell's interior, where it is normally positioned, to the cell's limiting plasma membrane that shields the cell from the outside. This leads to an influx of sodium ions into the cell, indirectly increasing the level of calcium—a key messenger—in the cytosol. The elevated level of calcium in turn activates a transcription factor called TFEB, which finally switches on autophagy and lysosomal genes. In other words, the system is initiated by the ion transporter NHE7, triggered by osmotic stress.
***
"...it is not yet clear how osmotic stress affects the translocation of NHE7 to the cell surface. It is also not known whether the entire degradation system is initiated or whether just individual genes are switched on, or which specific responses to osmotic stress are needed to activate the lysosomal system. Nor is it known which other stimuli may be triggered by this physiological process."
Comment: It is clear the designer of the biochemistry of life recognized there had to be a mechanism for the clearance of garbage as it developed. This had to be present when life started or it would have collapsed upon itself in piled up debris. dhw would prefer it if God arranged a biological system that had no garbage. Can't done, based on our studies of life's processes. We are still at theodicy, the assumption that God does not keep everything perfect and He should when He creates.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: I have accepted the logic of God’s existence and of H. sapiens’ superiority as starting points (accepting the logic does not mean belief, of course), but the theory you have developed from these creates two other starting points: 1) Your God directly designed every life form, and 2) He could have created H. sapiens any way he wanted (because he is all powerful - except when he creates a system full of mistakes – and is in full control of all phases of evolution). These two extra starting points, as you know perfectly well, create the anomaly of a God who has only one purpose (us), but who directly designs millions of non-human life forms before he starts designing our ancestors before he designs us. You don’t know why he chose such a method. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: No dodging. I have no idea why God chose to evolve us. There is no way to know.
That is not the problem, which you continue to dodge. I can only continue to define the problem until you finally acknowledge it: 1) by evolution you mean directly design, because you believe your God directly designed every species. 2) you have no idea why he chose to directly design millions of extinct non-human life forms, lifestyles, econiches and natural wonders if his only purpose was to directly design us. I have offered several perfectly logical explanations for God’s choice of evolution as a means of producing ALL species, but you refuse to consider them.
dhw: How about considering the possibility that your God did not WANT control, and that he deliberately created a system that would malfunction? Do you really imagine him wanting to specially design millions of organisms that would live for ever and ever and would reproduce more organisms that would live for ever and ever? Endings and new beginnings seem to me to be part of the essence of life – and if life was designed by God as an ever changing spectacle, then of course the system would have to cause endings as well as beginnings. And once more: if your God is not in control of one aspect of evolution – either through weakness or through deliberate choice - why should he not also lack control over other aspects? (I prefer deliberate choice, as I am less convinced than you, in your latest U-turn, that your God makes mistakes.)
DAVID: […] My perfect God cannot design a perfect error-less biochemical living system running at high speed. I have always accepted that. All you want to do is attack poor God as therefore less than adequate. We're back to theodicy as a complaint.
dhw: You have completely ignored my proposal above, repeated your own theory, and interpreted my attack on your theory as an attack on your God. It is your theory that offers us a God who is less than adequate and who has built a system which cannot avoid errors. The theory I have presented offers a God who is in total control and knows just what he is doing. Please read it and tell us what you object to.
DAVID: My point is there is no God who can create a perfect living biochemical high-speed system. The molecules will occasionally make mistakes. From my training in biochemistry I can state that as a fact. We can make a perfect auto, but after time wear and tear will result in needed repairs. A biological system will have early mistakes and also later wear and tear. You don't have to accept the God that creates a biochemical living system with mistakes. I do. Theodicy is your problem.
Once again, you have completely ignored my proposal. Assuming God exists, of course I accept that he created a system with “mistakes”. You don’t need to be trained in biochemistry to know that your body is full of bits and pieces that go wrong! Theodicy is your problem, not mine. So instead of tying yourself in knots trying to excuse your perfect God for creating an imperfect system (that is your “theodicy”), why not consider the possibility that he deliberately created a system that would go wrong? My proposal above offers you a solution to theodicy (as it can be extended to cover the whole of life), but you can’t be bothered even to consider it.
Under “garbage systems”:
DAVID: dhw would prefer it if God arranged a biological system that had no garbage. Can't done, based on our studies of life's processes. We are still at theodicy, the assumption that God does not keep everything perfect and He should when He creates.
If you would only read my posts, you wouldn’t make such silly assumptions. I have offered you an explanation for all the “imperfections”, and my theory of evolution (theistic version: God designed the autonomous mechanism for design, i.e. cellular intelligence) implies the exact opposite of him “keeping everything perfect”. But you object to all my alternative, logical theistic explanations of life’s history (including those that make sapiens a prime purpose) on the grounds that they “humanize” your God, even though you say he probably has thought patterns similar to ours. My proposal also explains the system of garbage removal, in which cell communities – just like ant communities – organize themselves to deal with whatever problems arise from their activities.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, June 30, 2020, 19:02 (1605 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: No dodging. I have no idea why God chose to evolve us. There is no way to know.
dhw: That is not the problem, which you continue to dodge... I have offered several perfectly logical explanations for God’s choice of evolution as a means of producing ALL species, but you refuse to consider them.
dhw: How about considering the possibility that your God did not WANT control, and that he deliberately created a system that would malfunction? Do you really imagine him wanting to specially design millions of organisms that would live for ever and ever and would reproduce more organisms that would live for ever and ever? Endings and new beginnings seem to me to be part of the essence of life – and if life was designed by God as an ever changing spectacle, then of course the system would have to cause endings as well as beginnings.
Once again you are imagining a God with a human personality which I do not accept. My God knows exactly what He wants and does it.
dhw: And once more: if your God is not in control of one aspect of evolution – either through weakness or through deliberate choice - why should he not also lack control over other aspects? (I prefer deliberate choice, as I am less convinced than you, in your latest U-turn, that your God makes mistakes.)[/i]
Answered below:
DAVID: […] My perfect God cannot design a perfect error-less biochemical living system running at high speed. I have always accepted that. All you want to do is attack poor God as therefore less than adequate. We're back to theodicy as a complaint.dhw: You have completely ignored my proposal above, repeated your own theory, and interpreted my attack on your theory as an attack on your God. It is your theory that offers us a God who is less than adequate and who has built a system which cannot avoid errors. The theory I have presented offers a God who is in total control and knows just what he is doing. Please read it and tell us what you object to.
DAVID: My point is there is no God who can create a perfect living biochemical high-speed system. The molecules will occasionally make mistakes. From my training in biochemistry I can state that as a fact. We can make a perfect auto, but after time wear and tear will result in needed repairs. A biological system will have early mistakes and also later wear and tear. You don't have to accept the God that creates a biochemical living system with mistakes. I do. Theodicy is your problem.
dhw: Once again, you have completely ignored my proposal. Assuming God exists, of course I accept that he created a system with “mistakes”. You don’t need to be trained in biochemistry to know that your body is full of bits and pieces that go wrong! Theodicy is your problem, not mine. So instead of tying yourself in knots trying to excuse your perfect God for creating an imperfect system (that is your “theodicy”), why not consider the possibility that he deliberately created a system that would go wrong? My proposal above offers you a solution to theodicy (as it can be extended to cover the whole of life), but you can’t be bothered even to consider it.
No, I don't accept your God with His human personality. The many safeguards in the biochemistry of life means He tried to stop as many errors as could be stopped. The errors were not planned on his part.
Under “garbage systems”:
DAVID: dhw would prefer it if God arranged a biological system that had no garbage. Can't be done, based on our studies of life's processes. We are still at theodicy, the assumption that God does not keep everything perfect and He should when He creates.
dhw: If you would only read my posts, you wouldn’t make such silly assumptions. I have offered you an explanation for all the “imperfections”, and my theory of evolution (theistic version: God designed the autonomous mechanism for design, i.e. cellular intelligence) implies the exact opposite of him “keeping everything perfect”. But you object to all my alternative, logical theistic explanations of life’s history (including those that make sapiens a prime purpose) on the grounds that they “humanize” your God, even though you say he probably has thought patterns similar to ours. My proposal also explains the system of garbage removal, in which cell communities – just like ant communities – organize themselves to deal with whatever problems arise from their activities.
Same list of complaints. As for thoughts, our logic and God's logic are the same, nothing more. we cannot know His underlying reasons for his actions. And of course you've plugged in the fantastic cell committees that have brilliant mental abilities, not from God. But when I make this complaint you add God might have done it and given them brilliance.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: How about considering the possibility that your God did not WANT control, and that he deliberately created a system that would malfunction? Do you really imagine him wanting to specially design millions of organisms that would live for ever and ever and would reproduce more organisms that would live for ever and ever? Endings and new beginnings seem to me to be part of the essence of life – and if life was designed by God as an ever changing spectacle, then of course the system would have to cause endings as well as beginnings.
DAVID: Once again you are imagining a God with a human personality which I do not accept. My God knows exactly what He wants and does it.
So does mine. Why do you regard a “perfect” God, who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know, as being more “human” and less purposeful than a “perfect” God who is unable to design a system without imperfections?
dhw: ...instead of tying yourself in knots trying to excuse your perfect God for creating an imperfect system (that is your “theodicy”), why not consider the possibility that he deliberately created a system that would go wrong? My proposal above offers you a solution to theodicy (as it can be extended to cover the whole of life), but you can’t be bothered even to consider it.
DAVID: No, I don't accept your God with His human personality. The many safeguards in the biochemistry of life means He tried to stop as many errors as could be stopped. The errors were not planned on his part.
Authoritatively stated, and pretty degrading to your perfect God, who simply did his best to make up for the imperfect and uncontrollable system he created.
dhw: I have offered you an explanation for all the “imperfections”, and my theory of evolution (theistic version: God designed the autonomous mechanism for design, i.e. cellular intelligence) implies the exact opposite of him “keeping everything perfect”. But you object to all my alternative, logical theistic explanations of life’s history (including those that make sapiens a prime purpose) on the grounds that they “humanize” your God, even though you say he probably has thought patterns similar to ours. My proposal also explains the system of garbage removal, in which cell communities – just like ant communities – organize themselves to deal with whatever problems arise from their activities.
DAVID: Same list of complaints. As for thoughts, our logic and God's logic are the same, nothing more. we cannot know His underlying reasons for his actions.
Of course we can’t know his reasons, but how do you know his logic is the same as ours if you can’t understand why he did what he did?
DAVID: And of course you've plugged in the fantastic cell committees that have brilliant mental abilities, not from God. But when I make this complaint you add God might have done it and given them brilliance.
Why “not from God”? I am an agnostic, and right from the start I have argued that the source of cellular intelligence may be your God! And I have continually asked you why you think your God is incapable of endowing cells with the intelligence to do their own designing (see Shapiro and Talbott)? Of course he could have done it – but you have fixed ideas about what he did and why he did it.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 01, 2020, 18:28 (1604 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Once again you are imagining a God with a human personality which I do not accept. My God knows exactly what He wants and does it.
dhw: So does mine. Why do you regard a “perfect” God, who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know, as being more “human” and less purposeful than a “perfect” God who is unable to design a system without imperfections?
You refuse to accept the point that a high-speed living biological system cannot be perfect. Are you campaigning for a 'perfect' God that can create it? Your definition of a perfect God doesn't exist.
dhw: ...instead of tying yourself in knots trying to excuse your perfect God for creating an imperfect system (that is your “theodicy”), why not consider the possibility that he deliberately created a system that would go wrong? My proposal above offers you a solution to theodicy (as it can be extended to cover the whole of life), but you can’t be bothered even to consider it.DAVID: No, I don't accept your God with His human personality. The many safeguards in the biochemistry of life means He tried to stop as many errors as could be stopped. The errors were not planned on his part.
dhw: Authoritatively stated, and pretty degrading to your perfect God, who simply did his best to make up for the imperfect and uncontrollable system he created.
Not degrading except as in your eyes. The self-correcting and safeguard systems in living organisms shows God knew it wouldn't work perfectly. I've produced a multitude of articles about safeguards showing required design, stating the safeguards must have been present when the advanced state appeared. Remember?
dhw: I have offered you an explanation for all the “imperfections”, and my theory of evolution (theistic version: God designed the autonomous mechanism for design, i.e. cellular intelligence) implies the exact opposite of him “keeping everything perfect”. But you object to all my alternative, logical theistic explanations of life’s history (including those that make sapiens a prime purpose) on the grounds that they “humanize” your God, even though you say he probably has thought patterns similar to ours. My proposal also explains the system of garbage removal, in which cell communities – just like ant communities – organize themselves to deal with whatever problems arise from their activities.DAVID: Same list of complaints. As for thoughts, our logic and God's logic are the same, nothing more. we cannot know His underlying reasons for his actions.
dhw: Of course we can’t know his reasons, but how do you know his logic is the same as ours if you can’t understand why he did what he did?
I've explained what I think His reasoning is about complexification, as a prime example of how I attempt to understand why and what He has done. It implies His logical thought, similar to ours.
DAVID: And of course you've plugged in the fantastic cell committees that have brilliant mental abilities, not from God. But when I make this complaint you add God might have done it and given them brilliance.dhw: Why “not from God”? I am an agnostic, and right from the start I have argued that the source of cellular intelligence may be your God! And I have continually asked you why you think your God is incapable of endowing cells with the intelligence to do their own designing (see Shapiro and Talbott)? Of course he could have done it – but you have fixed ideas about what he did and why he did it.
Referring to Talbott, you gotten rid of chance, a major advance in our discussions. I'll stick with God giving cells intelligent instructions, the ID approach.
Back to David's theory of evolution: brain problems
by David Turell , Thursday, July 02, 2020, 01:21 (1604 days ago) @ David Turell
Folding may go OK but there can be misfolding in the embryo:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/biology/understanding-how-brains-fold-and-misfold/?u...
"Australian and Swiss researchers say they have new clues to how a baby’s brain folds as it develops in the womb, a process critical to healthy brain function.
"Misfolding is linked with neurological conditions such as autism, anorexia, epilepsy and schizophrenia, but scientists do not fully understand what drives the folding process and why it sometimes goes wrong.
***
"Writing in the journal Cerebral Cortex, they report finding differences in both genetic expression and neuron shape during the folding process.
***
"The researchers say previous studies have focussed on white matter or looked at animals with smooth brains rather than folded ones, largely overlooking grey matter. Grey matter is made up of neuron bodies and their connecting arms; white matter comprises the neurons’ long nerve fibres and their protective layer of fat.
"The latest evidence suggests grey matter in the developing brain expands faster than white matter, creating mechanical instability that leads to brain folding. The resulting “hill” and “valley” folds follow a similar pattern in all folded brains of the same species.
"Tolcos and colleagues investigated the genetic and microstructural differences in future grey matter, the cortical plate, in the parts of the brain just beneath the “hills” and “valleys”. These areas were analysed at three points of development: when the brain was smooth, semi-folded and fully folded.
***
“'We found some genes have higher expression in regions that fold outward and lower expression in regions that fold inwards. Other genes reverse this pattern,” says RMIT’s Sebastian Quezada Rojas.
“'Together, these genetic expression patterns might explain why the cortical folding pattern is so consistent between individuals of the same species.”
"These genetic differences are also correlated with changes in grey matter neurons, with the study finding variations in the number of arms – or dendrites – that neurons grow in these regions during the folding process.
“'We believe the regions that fold outward and inward are programmed to behave differently, and the shape of the neurons affects the way these areas fold,” Quezada Rojas says."
Comment: this is just one area in the embryo where mistakes can occur. As a cardiologist in training I learned about congenital heart defects. Luckily those can be surgically corrected. I can accept a God who can't stop these errors. It is interesting that dhw can't.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Once again you are imagining a God with a human personality which I do not accept. My God knows exactly what He wants and does it.
dhw: So does mine. Why do you regard a “perfect” God, who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know, as being more “human” and less purposeful than a “perfect” God who is unable to design a system without imperfections?
DAVID: You refuse to accept the point that a high-speed living biological system cannot be perfect. Are you campaigning for a 'perfect' God that can create it? Your definition of a perfect God doesn't exist.
I have proposed that if he exists, your God deliberately designed a system with errors, because endings are as integral to life as beginnings. Can you imagine a planet full of organisms that never die but go on producing more and more and more….? The idea is absurd. Now please answer my bolded question.
DAVID: (under ”brain problems”): this is just one area in the embryo where mistakes can occur. As a cardiologist in training I learned about congenital heart defects. Luckily those can be surgically corrected. I can accept a God who can't stop these errors. It is interesting that dhw can't.
I can’t accept your claim that your God is perfect, all-powerful, all-knowing and yet unable to design a system without errors. I have suggested that it would make more sense if he deliberately designed it with errors, but you choose to ignore this suggestion. Once more, please answer the bolded question above…
dhw: ...instead of tying yourself in knots trying to excuse your perfect God for creating an imperfect system (that is your “theodicy”), why not consider the possibility that he deliberately created a system that would go wrong? My proposal above offers you a solution to theodicy (as it can be extended to cover the whole of life), but you can’t be bothered even to consider it.
DAVID: No, I don't accept your God with His human personality. The many safeguards in the biochemistry of life means He tried to stop as many errors as could be stopped. The errors were not planned on his part.
dhw: Authoritatively stated, and pretty degrading to your perfect God, who simply did his best to make up for the imperfect and uncontrollable system he created.
DAVID: Not degrading except as in your eyes. The self-correcting and safeguard systems in living organisms shows God knew it wouldn't work perfectly. I've produced a multitude of articles about safeguards showing required design, stating the safeguards must have been present when the advanced state appeared. Remember?
And I remember proposing that the “safeguards” could just as well be the responses of autonomous organisms finding their own ways of solving the problems you believe God set them, whether deliberately or otherwise. I’m surprised you don’t regard God “trying to stop errors” as degradingly humanizing him. At least in my alternative proposal he does exactly what he wants to do.
DAVID: Same list of complaints. As for thoughts, our logic and God's logic are the same, nothing more. we cannot know His underlying reasons for his actions.
dhw: Of course we can’t know his reasons, but how do you know his logic is the same as ours if you can’t understand why he did what he did?
DAVID: I've explained what I think His reasoning is about complexification, as a prime example of how I attempt to understand why and what He has done. It implies His logical thought, similar to ours.
The context is your theory of evolution, which is that your all-powerful God (except when he’s not all-powerful) had only one purpose – to design H. sapiens – but chose to design millions of now extinct non-human life forms before designing our ancestors before designing us, and you don’t know why. Once again, please stop dodging.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, July 02, 2020, 18:50 (1603 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: So does mine. Why do you regard a “perfect” God, who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know, as being more “human” and less purposeful than a “perfect” God who is unable to design a system without imperfections?
DAVID: You refuse to accept the point that a high-speed living biological system cannot be perfect. Are you campaigning for a 'perfect' God that can create it? Your definition of a perfect God doesn't exist.
dhw: I have proposed that if he exists, your God deliberately designed a system with errors, because endings are as integral to life as beginnings. Can you imagine a planet full of organisms that never die but go on producing more and more and more….? The idea is absurd. Now please answer my bolded question.
I've told you, it doesn't bother me that no God can make a perfect biological living system. The 'errors' are accidents not planned. But we both know death is built into life. Death has nothing to do with this argument. Death is planned, not an accident, and you understand that I would think. Why did you drag it in?
dhw: ...instead of tying yourself in knots trying to excuse your perfect God for creating an imperfect system (that is your “theodicy”), why not consider the possibility that he deliberately created a system that would go wrong? My proposal above offers you a solution to theodicy (as it can be extended to cover the whole of life), but you can’t be bothered even to consider it.
DAVID: No, I don't accept your God with His human personality. The many safeguards in the biochemistry of life means He tried to stop as many errors as could be stopped. The errors were not planned on his part.
dhw: Authoritatively stated, and pretty degrading to your perfect God, who simply did his best to make up for the imperfect and uncontrollable system he created.
DAVID: Not degrading except as in your eyes. The self-correcting and safeguard systems in living organisms shows God knew it wouldn't work perfectly. I've produced a multitude of articles about safeguards showing required design, stating the safeguards must have been present when the advanced state appeared. Remember?
dhw: And I remember proposing that the “safeguards” could just as well be the responses of autonomous organisms finding their own ways of solving the problems you believe God set them, whether deliberately or otherwise. I’m surprised you don’t regard God “trying to stop errors” as degradingly humanizing him. At least in my alternative proposal he does exactly what he wants to do.
That is your view of your humanized God, not mine.
DAVID: Same list of complaints. As for thoughts, our logic and God's logic are the same, nothing more. we cannot know His underlying reasons for his actions.dhw: Of course we can’t know his reasons, but how do you know his logic is the same as ours if you can’t understand why he did what he did?
DAVID: I've explained what I think His reasoning is about complexification, as a prime example of how I attempt to understand why and what He has done. It implies His logical thought, similar to ours.
dhw: The context is your theory of evolution, which is that your all-powerful God (except when he’s not all-powerful) had only one purpose – to design H. sapiens – but chose to design millions of now extinct non-human life forms before designing our ancestors before designing us, and you don’t know why. Once again, please stop dodging.
I don't dodge while you complain about a God you do not fully understand in the way I do. I'll still follow Adler's logic as you follow Talbott.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: Why do you regard a “perfect” God, who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know, as being more “human” and less purposeful than a “perfect” God who is unable to design a system without imperfections?
DAVID: You refuse to accept the point that a high-speed living biological system cannot be perfect. Are you campaigning for a 'perfect' God that can create it? Your definition of a perfect God doesn't exist.
dhw: I have proposed that if he exists, your God deliberately designed a system with errors, because endings are as integral to life as beginnings. Can you imagine a planet full of organisms that never die but go on producing more and more and more….? The idea is absurd. Now please answer my bolded question.
DAVID: I've told you, it doesn't bother me that no God can make a perfect biological living system. The 'errors' are accidents not planned. But we both know death is built into life. Death has nothing to do with this argument. Death is planned, not an accident, and you understand that I would think. Why did you drag it in?
I’d have thought that as a doctor you might have realized that most deaths are the result of a malfunctioning biological system. So the errors that cause death are planned, but the errors that make us ill or prevent us from being cured are accidental? Once you’ve explained that, perhaps you would tell us why you think a God who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know is more “human” and less purposeful than a God who is unable to design a system without imperfections.
DAVID: The self-correcting and safeguard systems in living organisms shows God knew it wouldn't work perfectly. I've produced a multitude of articles about safeguards showing required design, stating the safeguards must have been present when the advanced state appeared. Remember?
dhw: And I remember proposing that the “safeguards” could just as well be the responses of autonomous organisms finding their own ways of solving the problems you believe God set them, whether deliberately or otherwise. I’m surprised you don’t regard God “trying to stop errors” as degradingly humanizing him. At least in my alternative proposal he does exactly what he wants to do.
DAVID: That is your view of your humanized God, not mine.
Why is a God who does exactly what he wants to do more “humanized” than a God who tries to make up for errors in the system he invented?
DAVID (under “immune complexity”): Our immune system should not attack us, but it does under some circumstances which are mistakes by the control systems. The mistakes are that the protections put in place do not work.
So not only did your God design a system with mistakes, but some of the safeguards he put in place don’t work either. But this doesn’t “humanize” him!
dhw: Of course we can’t know his reasons, but how do you know his logic is the same as
ours if you can’t understand why he did what he did?
DAVID: I've explained what I think His reasoning is about complexification, as a prime example of how I attempt to understand why and what He has done. It implies His logical thought, similar to ours.
dhw: The context is your theory of evolution, which is that your all-powerful God (except when he’s not all-powerful) had only one purpose – to design H. sapiens – but chose to design millions of now extinct non-human life forms before designing our ancestors before designing us, and you don’t know why. Once again, please stop dodging.
DAVID: I don't dodge while you complain about a God you do not fully understand in the way I do. I'll still follow Adler's logic as you follow Talbott.
Adler’s logic, so you have told us, does not extend so far as to cover your theory bolded above. I am amazed at your claim that you fully understand God, and if you do not dodge, then please at last explain the logic behind the bolded theory above.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Friday, July 03, 2020, 19:22 (1602 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I've told you, it doesn't bother me that no God can make a perfect biological living system. The 'errors' are accidents not planned. But we both know death is built into life. Death has nothing to do with this argument. Death is planned, not an accident, and you understand that I would think. Why did you drag it in?
dhw: I’d have thought that as a doctor you might have realized that most deaths are the result of a malfunctioning biological system. So the errors that cause death are planned, but the errors that make us ill or prevent us from being cured are accidental?
Death is designed into the system with wearing out along with specific illnesses of aging.
dhw: ... perhaps you would tell us why you think a God who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know is more “human” and less purposeful than a God who is unable to design a system without imperfections.
Your premise is not mine. I judge that no God can make perfect living biologic system. It bothers you, not me
dhw: Why is a God who does exactly what he wants to do more “humanized” than a God who tries to make up for errors in the system he invented?
I describe a purposeful God who expects errors in the system.
DAVID (under “immune complexity”): Our immune system should not attack us, but it does under some circumstances which are mistakes by the control systems. The mistakes are that the protections put in place do not work.dhw: So not only did your God design a system with mistakes, but some of the safeguards he put in place don’t work either. But this doesn’t “humanize” him!
Same complaint. Did a human make the universe?
dhw: The context is your theory of evolution, which is that your all-powerful God (except when he’s not all-powerful) had only one purpose – to design H. sapiens – but chose to design millions of now extinct non-human life forms before designing our ancestors before designing us, and you don’t know why. Once again, please stop dodging.
DAVID: I don't dodge while you complain about a God you do not fully understand in the way I do. I'll still follow Adler's logic as you follow Talbott.
dhw: Adler’s logic, so you have told us, does not extend so far as to cover your theory bolded above. I am amazed at your claim that you fully understand God, and if you do not dodge, then please at last explain the logic behind the bolded theory above.
Adler's writings give us a very clear and logical reason for understanding God's purpose that He wished to produce humans. From that point the rest of the theory that God chose to evolve us is logically quite clear. On page 291 Adler completely demolishes evolutionists by stating that our immaterialist nature cannot be explained by a naturalist evolution. Adler is fully aware of evolutionary theory as espoused by naturalists. As he believes in God, I would guess he would agree with my thoughts. Since you haven't read Adler, how can you complain?
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: […] The 'errors' are accidents not planned. But we both know death is built into life. Death has nothing to do with this argument. Death is planned, not an accident, and you understand that I would think. Why did you drag it in?
dhw: I’d have thought that as a doctor you might have realized that most deaths are the result of a malfunctioning biological system. So the errors that cause death are planned, but the errors that make us ill or prevent us from being cured are accidental?
DAVID: Death is designed into the system with wearing out along with specific illnesses of aging.
So your God deliberately designed all those parts of the biological system that wear out and kill old people, but he accidentally designed all the errors in the biological system that kill off young people as well as old people. This is getting silly!
dhw: ... perhaps you would tell us why you think a God who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know is more “human” and less purposeful than a God who is unable to design a system without imperfections
DAVID: Your premise is not mine. I judge that no God can make perfect living biologic system. It bothers you, not me.
You attacked my proposal as “imagining a God with a human personality” and: “My God knows exactly what he wants and does it” – as if mine didn’t. So please answer my bolded question.
DAVID: I describe a purposeful God who expects errors in the system.
I know what you describe. Please, please, answer my bolded question.
DAVID (under “immune complexity”): Our immune system should not attack us, but it does under some circumstances which are mistakes by the control systems. The mistakes are that the protections put in place do not work.
dhw: So not only did your God design a system with mistakes, but some of the safeguards he put in place don’t work either. But this doesn’t “humanize” him!
DAVID: Same complaint. Did a human make the universe?
Of course not. I have suggested that he designed the mistakes deliberately. You now have him deliberately designing the mistakes to kill old people, and only those that kill young people too are apparently accidental! But a God who designs deliberate errors AND accidental mistakes apparently is not “humanized”, whereas a God who designs exactly what he wants to design is “humanized”!
Transferred from “brain expansion":
dhw: […] you have agreed that in all my alternatives, he DOES think logically as we do, but according to you, that "humanizes him", and although according to you he probably has thought patterns similar to ours, we mustn't think he does.
DAVID: The bold is the usual distortion of my thoughts: we and He use the same logical methods. […]
dhw: What “logical methods”? If I have a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, I will use the means of achieving it. That is my logic. How is that the same logical method as having a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, but not achieving it until after creating millions of other unrelated things?
DAVID: The bold is a perfect example of your human thinking applied to God. Thank you. Makes my point.
Your point was that “we and He use the same logical methods.” My human logic and your version of God’s logic could hardly be more different! Your version is God saying: “I want only one thing, I have the power to design it, but I’ll design something else which is different from the only thing I want to design.” Please explain how this denotes the same logical method as mine.
dhw: Once again, please stop dodging.
DAVID: I don't dodge while you complain about a God you do not fully understand in the way I do. I'll still follow Adler's logic as you follow Talbott.
dhw: Adler’s logic, so you have told us, does not extend so far as to cover your theory bolded above. I am amazed at your claim that you fully understand God, and if you do not dodge, then please at last explain the logic behind the bolded theory above.
DAVID: Adler's writings give us a very clear and logical reason for understanding God's purpose that He wished to produce humans. From that point the rest of the theory that God chose to evolve us is logically quite clear. On page 291 Adler completely demolishes evolutionists by stating that our immaterialist nature cannot be explained by a naturalist evolution. Adler is fully aware of evolutionary theory as espoused by naturalists. As he believes in God, I would guess he would agree with my thoughts. Since you haven't read Adler, how can you complain?
I do not complain about Adler! I complain about your theory that your (sometimes) all-powerful God had only one purpose – to create H. sapiens – but directly designed millions of other, now extinct life forms, natural wonders etc. that had nothing to do with humans, before he directly designed lots of different homos before he directly designed H. sapiens. I keep asking you to explain the logic, and all you do is hide behind Adler, who you have told us quite explicitly does not cover your theory! Yet again: please stop dodging!
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, July 04, 2020, 19:29 (1601 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Death is designed into the system with wearing out along with specific illnesses of aging.
dhw: So your God deliberately designed all those parts of the biological system that wear out and kill old people, but he accidentally designed all the errors in the biological system that kill off young people as well as old people. This is getting silly!
Your silliness is really exposed. God did not design accidental errors in living biology. Do you know the definition of 'accident'?
dhw: You attacked my proposal as “imagining a God with a human personality” and: “My God knows exactly what he wants and does it” – as if mine didn’t. So please answer my bolded question.
I can't answer a bolded imperfect premise re the meaning of 'accidental'.
DAVID: The bold is the usual distortion of my thoughts: we and He use the same logical methods. […]
dhw: What “logical methods”? If I have a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, I will use the means of achieving it. That is my logic. How is that the same logical method as having a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, but not achieving it until after creating millions of other unrelated things?
DAVID: The bold is a perfect example of your human thinking applied to God. Thank you. Makes my point.
dhw: Your point was that “we and He use the same logical methods.” My human logic and your version of God’s logic could hardly be more different! Your version is God saying: “I want only one thing, I have the power to design it, but I’ll design something else which is different from the only thing I want to design.” Please explain how this denotes the same logical method as mine.
Of course God may follow a different pattern of logical thought than you or I do. You are arguing from your human viewpoint as to why He chose his method of creating humans. His choice is from His desires, not logic, but his choice of evolution must be logical in his mind. We cannot know the reasons for His desired goals, although you constantly want to guess!
dhw: Once again, please stop dodging.DAVID: I don't dodge while you complain about a God you do not fully understand in the way I do. I'll still follow Adler's logic as you follow Talbott.
dhw: Adler’s logic, so you have told us, does not extend so far as to cover your theory bolded above. I am amazed at your claim that you fully understand God, and if you do not dodge, then please at last explain the logic behind the bolded theory above.
DAVID: Adler's writings give us a very clear and logical reason for understanding God's purpose that He wished to produce humans. From that point the rest of the theory that God chose to evolve us is logically quite clear. On page 291 Adler completely demolishes evolutionists by stating that our immaterialist nature cannot be explained by a naturalist evolution. Adler is fully aware of evolutionary theory as espoused by naturalists. As he believes in God, I would guess he would agree with my thoughts. Since you haven't read Adler, how can you complain?
dhw: I do not complain about Adler! I complain about your theory that your (sometimes) all-powerful God had only one purpose – to create H. sapiens – but directly designed millions of other, now extinct life forms, natural wonders etc. that had nothing to do with humans, before he directly designed lots of different homos before he directly designed H. sapiens. I keep asking you to explain the logic, and all you do is hide behind Adler, who you have told us quite explicitly does not cover your theory! Yet again: please stop dodging!
I have written above Adler's thoughts. Mt theory comes directly from Adler's exposition about our obvious vast difference from animals with abstract thought and consciousness which came through evolution. My bold is perfectly clear as you dodge and refuse to accept my opinion about Adler. He is key to my reasoning which only dodges your contrived views of my approach to how God ran evolution. You still don't allow the thought God had the right to choose his method of creation. I'll admit you sometimes give lip service to the concept, but constantly revert back to an opinion His choice of method doesn't fit your human reasoning. Remember the bolded statement of yours above, a perfect example. Must I remind you, your approach to your intentions are not God's, as much as you try to humanize Him.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Death is designed into the system with wearing out along with specific illnesses of aging.
dhw: So your God deliberately designed all those parts of the biological system that wear out and kill old people, but he accidentally designed all the errors in the biological system that kill off young people as well as old people. This is getting silly!
DAVID: Your silliness is really exposed. God did not design accidental errors in living biology. Do you know the definition of 'accident'?
You wrote: “The 'errors' are accidents not planned.” But he designed the whole system! You have even said that he knew the unplanned, accidental errors were part of his design, and so he provided safeguards, though some of these didn’t work either! The silliness lies in your God deliberately designing “errors” to kill old people but calling the same errors “accidental” when they kill young people.
dhw: […] please answer my bolded question.
DAVID: I can't answer a bolded imperfect premise re the meaning of 'accidental'.
The bolded question is: perhaps you would tell us why you think a God who deliberately designs the imperfect system we know is more “human” and less purposeful than a God who is unable to design a system without imperfections. Nothing to do with the meaning of “accidental”.
DAVID: […] we and He use the same logical methods. […]
dhw: What “logical methods”? If I have a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, I will use the means of achieving it. That is my logic. How is that the same logical method as having a single goal to create one thing and the means of achieving it, but not achieving it until after creating millions of other unrelated things?
DAVID: The bold is a perfect example of your human thinking applied to God. Thank you. Makes my point.
dhw: Your point was that “we and He use the same logical methods.” My human logic and your version of God’s logic could hardly be more different!
DAVID: Of course God may follow a different pattern of logical thought than you or I do. You are arguing from your human viewpoint as to why He chose his method of creating humans. His choice is from His desires, not logic, but his choice of evolution must be logical in his mind. We cannot know the reasons for His desired goals, although you constantly want to guess!
So why do you keep saying “we and He use the same logical methods”? Of course his method of creating humans and all the other mainly extinct life forms you keep forgetting about would have been from his desires and would have been logical in his mind. That is why I have offered you several logical “guesses”. Only yours is illogical, but you can’t bear to think it might be wrong!
dhw: I do not complain about Adler! I complain about your theory that your (sometimes) all-powerful God had only one purpose – to create H. sapiens – but directly designed millions of other, now extinct life forms, natural wonders etc. that had nothing to do with humans, before he directly designed lots of different homos before he directly designed H. sapiens. I keep asking you to explain the logic, and all you do is hide behind Adler, who you have told us quite explicitly does not cover your theory! Yet again: please stop dodging!
DAVID: I have written above Adler's thoughts. My theory comes directly from Adler's exposition about our obvious vast difference from animals with abstract thought and consciousness which came through evolution. […]
More dodging. I accept our obvious vast difference from animals.
DAVID: You still don't allow the thought God had the right to choose his method of creation. […] Must I remind you, your approach to your intentions are not God's, as much as you try to humanize Him.
Of course God chose his method of creation! “Must I remind you” that your approach to his intentions and methods is illogical (hence the dodging), whereas my alternatives – which you agree are logical – are dismissed on the grounds that they humanize a God who you have told us probably has thought patterns similar to our own.
Transferred from “brain expansion”:
dhw: Now I seem to stand alone in suggesting that he knew exactly what he wanted and did it!
DAVID: I love it! I fully agree with the bold!!! And He is quite all-powerful. After all, He started the universe, evolved it to create a massive Milky Way which then, under His guidance produced an Earth perfect for life, which He then invented, warts and all!!! Fuss over the warts. He is still God. Look what He has produced. But no, all you look for are the negatives, which allow you to deny Him. There are so many positives which 'prove His existence beyond a reasonable doubt' (Adler).
What is “quite” all-powerful? Again you dodge the implications of your own guesses, and especially the “warts”. I have never “denied” God. I present the case for and against in order to explain my agnosticism. And our disagreement has nothing to do with the existence of God but concerns only your illogical theories concerning his possible nature, purpose and methods. Please stop dodging!
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, July 05, 2020, 21:11 (1600 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You wrote: “The 'errors' are accidents not planned.” But he designed the whole system! You have even said that he knew the unplanned, accidental errors were part of his design, and so he provided safeguards, though some of these didn’t work either! The silliness lies in your God deliberately designing “errors” to kill old people but calling the same errors “accidental” when they kill young people.
Molecular errors in living biology are just that, much as you try to contrive if differently.
DAVID: Of course God may follow a different pattern of logical thought than you or I do. You are arguing from your human viewpoint as to why He chose his method of creating humans. His choice is from His desires, not logic, but his choice of evolution must be logical in his mind. We cannot know the reasons for His desired goals, although you constantly want to guess!
dhw: So why do you keep saying “we and He use the same logical methods”? Of course his method of creating humans and all the other mainly extinct life forms you keep forgetting about would have been from his desires and would have been logical in his mind. That is why I have offered you several logical “guesses”. Only yours is illogical, but you can’t bear to think it might be wrong!
We use the same logical methods of thought. The logic behind His choices is unknown to us.
DAVID: You still don't allow the thought God had the right to choose his method of creation. […] Must I remind you, your approach to your intentions are not God's, as much as you try to humanize Him.
dhw: Of course God chose his method of creation! “Must I remind you” that your approach to his intentions and methods is illogical (hence the dodging), whereas my alternatives – which you agree are logical – are dismissed on the grounds that they humanize a God who you have told us probably has thought patterns similar to our own.
Of course they are humanizing. I don't need to list the examples. You are saying again, Adler and i are illogical.
Transferred from “brain expansion”:
dhw: Now I seem to stand alone in suggesting that he knew exactly what he wanted and did it!DAVID: I love it! I fully agree with the bold!!! And He is quite all-powerful. After all, He started the universe, evolved it to create a massive Milky Way which then, under His guidance produced an Earth perfect for life, which He then invented, warts and all!!! Fuss over the warts. He is still God. Look what He has produced. But no, all you look for are the negatives, which allow you to deny Him. There are so many positives which 'prove His existence beyond a reasonable doubt' (Adler).
dhw: What is “quite” all-powerful? Again you dodge the implications of your own guesses, and especially the “warts”. I have never “denied” God. I present the case for and against in order to explain my agnosticism. And our disagreement has nothing to do with the existence of God but concerns only your illogical theories concerning his possible nature, purpose and methods. Please stop dodging!
The 'implications of my thinking are based on Adler's discussions of God's creation of us. I'm only dodging your illogical approaches to a God you constantly humanize. 
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: You wrote: “The 'errors' are accidents not planned.” But he designed the whole system! You have even said that he knew the unplanned, accidental errors were part of his design, and so he provided safeguards, though some of these didn’t work either! The silliness lies in your God deliberately designing “errors” to kill old people but calling the same errors “accidental” when they kill young people.
DAVID: Molecular errors in living biology are just that, much as you try to contrive if differently.
Of course errors are errors. But you insist that your God designed “living biology”, and you tie yourself in intellectual knots, telling us that he deliberately designed the “errors” to weaken and kill old people, but it was impossible for him to build the system without accidental “errors” that would weaken or kill all of us, and so he tried to provide safeguards, but some of those didn’t work.
DAVID: Of course God may follow a different pattern of logical thought than you or I do. You are arguing from your human viewpoint as to why He chose his method of creating humans. His choice is from His desires, not logic, but his choice of evolution must be logical in his mind. We cannot know the reasons for His desired goals, although you constantly want to guess!
dhw: So why do you keep saying “we and He use the same logical methods”? Of course his method of creating humans and all the other mainly extinct life forms you keep forgetting about would have been from his desires and would have been logical in his mind. That is why I have offered you several logical “guesses”. Only yours is illogical, but you can’t bear to think it might be wrong!
DAVID: We use the same logical methods of thought. The logic behind His choices is unknown to us.
How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?
DAVID: You still don't allow the thought God had the right to choose his method of creation. […] Must I remind you, your approach to your intentions are not God's, as much as you try to humanize Him.
dhw: Of course God chose his method of creation! “Must I remind you” that your approach to his intentions and methods is illogical (hence the dodging), whereas my alternatives – which you agree are logical – are dismissed on the grounds that they humanize a God who you have told us probably has thought patterns similar to our own.
DAVID: Of course they are humanizing. I don't need to list the examples. You are saying again, Adler and i are illogical.
I did not say they weren’t humanizing. I merely reminded you of your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so that is no reason to reject a logical explanation of his actions. I have no objection to the logical arguments you say Adler puts forward for the uniqueness of humans and for the existence of God. What is illogical in your theory – the bit which you always try to dodge and which you tell us Adler does not deal with – is the claim that an all-powerful God has only one purpose, to create H. sapiens, but spends 3.X billion years specially designing millions of now extinct non-human life forms before then specially designing all our ancestors before finally specially designing us.
Transferred from “brain expansion”:
dhw: Now I seem to stand alone in suggesting that he knew exactly what he wanted and did it!
DAVID: I love it! I fully agree with the bold!!! And He is quite all-powerful. After all, He started the universe, evolved it to create a massive Milky Way which then, under His guidance produced an Earth perfect for life, which He then invented, warts and all!!! Fuss over the warts. He is still God. Look what He has produced. But no, all you look for are the negatives, which allow you to deny Him. There are so many positives which 'prove His existence beyond a reasonable doubt' (Adler).
dhw: What is “quite” all-powerful? Again you dodge the implications of your own guesses, and especially the “warts”. I have never “denied” God. I present the case for and against in order to explain my agnosticism. And our disagreement has nothing to do with the existence of God but concerns only your illogical theories concerning his possible nature, purpose and methods. Please stop dodging!
DAVID: The 'implications of my thinking are based on Adler's discussions of God's creation of us. I'm only dodging your illogical approaches to a God you constantly humanize.
See above for your clinging to Adler as a way of dodging the illogicality of your theory and for your “humanizing” dodge. You are currently telling us about his errors, his not knowing all the consequences of his actions, and his lack of control. Apparently you regard this as less human and more purposeful than the hypothesis I present of a God who knows exactly what he wants and produces it.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, July 06, 2020, 15:48 (1599 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Molecular errors in living biology are just that, much as you try to contrive if differently.
dhw: Of course errors are errors. But you insist that your God designed “living biology”, and you tie yourself in intellectual knots, telling us that he deliberately designed the “errors” to weaken and kill old people, but it was impossible for him to build the system without accidental “errors” that would weaken or kill all of us, and so he tried to provide safeguards, but some of those didn’t work.
A great description of my viewpoint. No biological living system can be designed perfectly. That is the truth. I accept God, warts and all, as you view Him.
DAVID: We use the same logical methods of thought. The logic behind His choices is unknown to us.dhw: How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?
The 'logic' resides in God's reasons for his choices. We can't know that.
DAVID: You still don't allow the thought God had the right to choose his method of creation. […] Must I remind you, your approach to your intentions are not God's, as much as you try to humanize Him.dhw: Of course God chose his method of creation! “Must I remind you” that your approach to his intentions and methods is illogical (hence the dodging), whereas my alternatives – which you agree are logical – are dismissed on the grounds that they humanize a God who you have told us probably has thought patterns similar to our own.
DAVID: Of course they are humanizing. I don't need to list the examples. You are saying again, Adler and i are illogical.
dhw: I did not say they weren’t humanizing. I merely reminded you of your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so that is no reason to reject a logical explanation of his actions. I have no objection to the logical arguments you say Adler puts forward for the uniqueness of humans and for the existence of God. What is illogical in your theory – the bit which you always try to dodge and which you tell us Adler does not deal with – is the claim that an all-powerful God has only one purpose, to create H. sapiens, but spends 3.X billion years specially designing millions of now extinct non-human life forms before then specially designing all our ancestors before finally specially designing us.
The bold was God's choice. You object while admitting God, if He exists, ran evolution.
Transferred from “brain expansion”:
dhw: Now I seem to stand alone in suggesting that he knew exactly what he wanted and did it!DAVID: I love it! I fully agree with the bold!!! And He is quite all-powerful. After all, He started the universe, evolved it to create a massive Milky Way which then, under His guidance produced an Earth perfect for life, which He then invented, warts and all!!! Fuss over the warts. He is still God. Look what He has produced. But no, all you look for are the negatives, which allow you to deny Him. There are so many positives which 'prove His existence beyond a reasonable doubt' (Adler).
dhw: What is “quite” all-powerful? Again you dodge the implications of your own guesses, and especially the “warts”. I have never “denied” God. I present the case for and against in order to explain my agnosticism. And our disagreement has nothing to do with the existence of God but concerns only your illogical theories concerning his possible nature, purpose and methods. Please stop dodging!
DAVID: The 'implications of my thinking are based on Adler's discussions of God's creation of us. I'm only dodging your illogical approaches to a God you constantly humanize.
dhw: See above for your clinging to Adler as a way of dodging the illogicality of your theory and for your “humanizing” dodge. You are currently telling us about his errors, his not knowing all the consequences of his actions, and his lack of control.
You know God knew of His problems with biological processes. He built-in the safeguards He could.
dhw: Apparently you regard this as less human and more purposeful than the hypothesis I present of a God who knows exactly what he wants and produces it.
I've said before your bolded phrase is exactly my thought. But your God experiments and enjoys spectacle. That is a humanized God.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Molecular errors in living biology are just that, much as you try to contrive if differently.
dhw: Of course errors are errors. But you insist that your God designed “living biology”, and you tie yourself in intellectual knots, telling us that he deliberately designed the “errors” to weaken and kill old people, but it was impossible for him to build the system without accidental “errors” that would weaken or kill all of us, and so he tried to provide safeguards, but some of those didn’t work.
DAVID: A great description of my viewpoint. No biological living system can be designed perfectly. That is the truth. I accept God, warts and all, as you view Him.
The question is what sort of God you accept. At one moment he is all-powerful, all-knowing and in total control. The next he’s faffing around creating a system full of errors which he can’t control, trying to provide safeguards, and even then failing to do so. We’re not talking about a minor detail here. This is the whole of “living biology”, i.e. life itself, of which according to you one particular species was his one and only purpose for creating the universe! And yet when I propose that he actually created the system he WANTED to create – because he did not want to create billions and billions of perfect life forms that would go on multiplying and diversifying but would never die – I am accused of “humanizing” him and making him act without a purpose.
DAVID: You know God knew of His problems with biological processes. He built-in the safeguards He could.
dhw: Apparently you regard this as less human and more purposeful than the hypothesis I present of a God who knows exactly what he wants and produces it.
DAVID: I've said before your bolded phrase is exactly my thought. But your God experiments and enjoys spectacle. That is a humanized God.
If he knows what he wants and produces it, and what he produces is full of errors, then he must have wanted a product full of errors! And why do you think a God who deliberately creates the “errors” is more humanized than a God who does what he can (and sometimes fails) to make up for the errors in the system he has designed?
Under “biological complexity”: Dr. Daley found that each resection enzyme is tailored to deal with a specific type of complex break, which explains why a diverse toolkit of resection enzymes has evolved over millennia." (DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: It seems God recognized errors would occur and provided all the necessary tools for perfect reproduction.
As before, you have him designing the system from scratch, blundering (because you say he did not create the errors deliberately), trying to provide safeguards, and sometimes failing. (Is reproduction always “perfect”?). As with the immune system, we clearly have a mechanism which enables cells to solve problems and, over time, to build up a library of their solutions. Maybe your God provided this autonomous mechanism which sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t solve the problems and which I call “cellular intelligence”.
DAVID: We use the same logical methods of thought. The logic behind His choices is unknown to us.
dhw: How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?
DAVID: The 'logic' resides in God's reasons for his choices. We can't know that.
Of course it does. You have guessed at his choice (bolded below), and can’t find any logical reasons for it. So once more: how do you know that his logical method of thought is the same as ours?
dhw: What is illogical in your theory – the bit which you always try to dodge and which you tell us Adler does not deal with – is the claim that an all-powerful God has only one purpose, to create H. sapiens, but spends 3.X billion years specially designing millions of now extinct non-human life forms before then specially designing all our ancestors before finally specially designing us.
DAVID: The bold was God's choice. You object while admitting God, if He exists, ran evolution.
No, the bold is your interpretation of his choice! How often do you want me to repeat that although each of your three guessed premises is possible in itself, the combination is illogical. You admit that my alternatives are logical, complain that they “humanize”God, and try to forget your own agreement that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours - which is a perfectly logical proposal since you believe that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 07, 2020, 18:37 (1598 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: A great description of my viewpoint. No biological living system can be designed perfectly. That is the truth. I accept God, warts and all, as you view Him.
dhw: The question is what sort of God you accept. At one moment he is all-powerful, all-knowing and in total control.
Have you noted God created life when none existed, and we cannot figure out how?
dhw: The next he’s faffing around creating a system full of errors which he can’t control, trying to provide safeguards, and even then failing to do so. We’re not talking about a minor detail here. This is the whole of “living biology”, i.e. life itself,
He put in as effective safeguards as He could. He foresaw the problems. Not his fault that high speed molecular reactions make mistakes.
dhw: of which according to you one particular species was his one and only purpose for creating the universe! And yet when I propose that he actually created the system he WANTED to create – because he did not want to create billions and billions of perfect life forms that would go on multiplying and diversifying but would never die – I am accused of “humanizing” him and making him act without a purpose.
Your one lucid moment about recognizing death is builtin, which is not my issue about humanizing: you have Him experimenting and enjoying spectacles.
dhw: If he knows what he wants and produces it, and what he produces is full of errors, then he must have wanted a product full of errors! And why do you think a God who deliberately creates the “errors” is more humanized than a God who does what he can (and sometimes fails) to make up for the errors in the system he has designed?
Total distortion. God cannot control each protein molecule's actions
Under “biological complexity”: Dr. Daley found that each resection enzyme is tailored to deal with a specific type of complex break, which explains why a diverse toolkit of resection enzymes has evolved over millennia." (DAVID’s bold)DAVID: It seems God recognized errors would occur and provided all the necessary tools for perfect reproduction.
dhw: As before, you have him designing the system from scratch, blundering (because you say he did not create the errors deliberately), trying to provide safeguards, and sometimes failing. (Is reproduction always “perfect”?). As with the immune system, we clearly have a mechanism which enables cells to solve problems and, over time, to build up a library of their solutions. Maybe your God provided this autonomous mechanism which sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t solve the problems and which I call “cellular intelligence”.
"Blundering" is a twisted distortion of what is possible to create in a living system.
dhw: How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?
DAVID: The 'logic' resides in God's reasons for his choices. We can't know that.
dhw: Of course it does. You have guessed at his choice (bolded below), and can’t find any logical reasons for it. So once more: how do you know that his logical method of thought is the same as ours?[/i]
dhw: What is illogical in your theory – the bit which you always try to dodge and which you tell us Adler does not deal with – is the claim that an all-powerful God has only one purpose, to create H. sapiens, but spends 3.X billion years specially designing millions of now extinct non-human life forms before then specially designing all our ancestors before finally specially designing us.
Adler uses our difference to prove God exists, and discusses our purposeful creation by evolution to cement His points.
DAVID: The bold was God's choice. You object while admitting God, if He exists, ran evolution.dhw: No, the bold is your interpretation of his choice! How often do you want me to repeat that although each of your three guessed premises is possible in itself, the combination is illogical. You admit that my alternatives are logical, complain that they “humanize”God, and try to forget your own agreement that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours - which is a perfectly logical proposal since you believe that our consciousness is part of his consciousness.
We go 'round and 'round. Adler makes my theory logical. Our logic is similar to God's, the only thought pattern which is definitely similar. That is my only agreement with you. Logic is logic and it has rules.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: A great description of my viewpoint. No biological living system can be designed perfectly. That is the truth. I accept God, warts and all, as you view Him.
dhw: The question is what sort of God you accept. At one moment he is all-powerful, all-knowing and in total control.
DAVID: Have you noted God created life when none existed, and we cannot figure out how?
Yes indeed, and that’s your problem, because according to you this all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control being created from scratch a system….See next comment:
dhw: ….full of errors which he can’t control, trying to provide safeguards, and even then failing to do so. We’re not talking about a minor detail here. This is the whole of “living biology”, i.e. life itself.
DAVID: He put in as effective safeguards as He could. He foresaw the problems. Not his fault that high speed molecular reactions make mistakes.
Why do you feel you have to defend his inability to create a perfect system? Why can’t you consider the possibility that he WANTED it this way? You agreed with me that your God knows what he wants and produces it! See next comment:
dhw: If he knows what he wants and produces it, and what he produces is full of errors, then he must have wanted a product full of errors! And why do you think a God who deliberately creates the “errors” is more humanized than a God who does what he can (and sometimes fails) to make up for the errors in the system he has designed?
DAVID: Total distortion. God cannot control each protein molecule's actions.
Why is creating what he wants a distortion? Why do you assume that an all-powerful God’s powers are limited and he was forced to create something he didn’t want to create and tried – sometimes in vain – to rectify?
dhw: […] when I propose that he actually created the system he WANTED to create – because he did not want to create billions and billions of perfect life forms that would go on multiplying and diversifying but would never die – I am accused of “humanizing” him and making him act without a purpose.
DAVID: Your one lucid moment about recognizing death is builtin, which is not my issue about humanizing: you have Him experimenting and enjoying spectacles.
Experimenting would remove the discrepancy in your theory between God having only one purpose (us) but spending 3.X billion years directly designing anything but us. Your all-purposeful God must have had a reason for creating the great bush of life, including us, and it is perfectly possible that, as you put it yourself, he enjoys his work much as a painter enjoys his paintings. Of course we can only speculate, but as you so rightly assume, he probably has thought patterns similar to ours.
dhw: How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?
DAVID: Adler uses our difference to prove God exists, and discusses our purposeful creation by evolution to cement His points.
But you have told us explicitly that he does not cover the above discrepancy. Please stop dodging the issue and trying to hide behind Adler, whose logic I do not dispute.
DAVID: We go 'round and 'round. Adler makes my theory logical. Our logic is similar to God's, the only thought pattern which is definitely similar. That is my only agreement with you. Logic is logic and it has rules.
We go round and round because you keep dodging the issue. The basic rule of logic as I understand it is that the premises of an argument should combine to form a pattern that makes sense to those engaged in the discussion. Here are all your premises. (Forget Adler – it’s your theory we are discussing.) Humans are unique and are so complex that they prove the existence of God. God’s one and only purpose was to create sapiens. God is all-powerful. God spent 3.X billion years directly designing every non-human life form, econiche etc. before directly designing our ancestors before directly designing us. Each premise is reasonable in itself. But put them together, and the following question arises: if your all-powerful God had only one purpose (us), why did he spend 3.X billion years NOT designing us but designing millions of now extinct, non-human life forms, econiches etc.? Your answer: no idea. Goodbye to logic. “Our logic is similar to God’s” = God has no idea either. If God exists, I reckon he would know what he wants and would do it. Hence all the logical alternatives I offer.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 08, 2020, 18:26 (1597 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Total distortion. God cannot control each protein molecule's actions.
dhw: Why is creating what he wants a distortion? Why do you assume that an all-powerful God’s powers are limited and he was forced to create something he didn’t want to create and tried – sometimes in vain – to rectify?
Forced! Crazy comment. God creates exactly what He wishes. What is distorted is your constant claim that God could have made the living biology system with perfect function. Impossible.
dhw: […] when I propose that he actually created the system he WANTED to create – because he did not want to create billions and billions of perfect life forms that would go on multiplying and diversifying but would never die – I am accused of “humanizing” him and making him act without a purpose.DAVID: Your one lucid moment about recognizing death is builtin, which is not my issue about humanizing: you have Him experimenting and enjoying spectacles.
dhw: Experimenting would remove the discrepancy in your theory between God having only one purpose (us) but spending 3.X billion years directly designing anything but us. Your all-purposeful God must have had a reason for creating the great bush of life, including us, and it is perfectly possible that, as you put it yourself, he enjoys his work much as a painter enjoys his paintings. Of course we can only speculate, but as you so rightly assume, he probably has thought patterns similar to ours.
Same mistaken approach. But you always forget that the huge bush gives us the food energy we need for a huge, and growing, human population.
dhw: How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?DAVID: Adler uses our difference to prove God exists, and discusses our purposeful creation by evolution to cement His points.
dhw: But you have told us explicitly that he does not cover the above discrepancy. Please stop dodging the issue and trying to hide behind Adler, whose logic I do not dispute.
Thanks for accepting Adler. Your comment about understanding God's logic is impossible to achieve. Whatever logic God used to decided upon His method of evolving us, I am sure it was logical, but He doesn't tell us His logic behind His reasons. How can we understand it?
DAVID: We go 'round and 'round. Adler makes my theory logical. Our logic is similar to God's, the only thought pattern which is definitely similar. That is my only agreement with you. Logic is logic and it has rules.dhw: We go round and round because you keep dodging the issue. The basic rule of logic as I understand it is that the premises of an argument should combine to form a pattern that makes sense to those engaged in the discussion. Here are all your premises. (Forget Adler – it’s your theory we are discussing.) Humans are unique and are so complex that they prove the existence of God. God’s one and only purpose was to create sapiens. God is all-powerful. God spent 3.X billion years directly designing every non-human life form, econiche etc. before directly designing our ancestors before directly designing us. Each premise is reasonable in itself. But put them together, and the following question arises: if your all-powerful God had only one purpose (us), why did he spend 3.X billion years NOT designing us but designing millions of now extinct, non-human life forms, econiches etc.? Your answer: no idea.
False conclusion. You've totally ignored my two reasons: God runs evolution and chose to evolve humans over time. The huge bush of life provides food for a burgeoning population of humans. My 'no idea' is not as you always imply. I have 'no idea' why He made the choices He made. I can't know!!! History can only tell us what He did, not why. My interpretation is not your interpretation, which basically is, why wasn't God impatient? Patently humanizing.
dhw: Goodbye to logic. “Our logic is similar to God’s” = God has no idea either. If God exists, I reckon he would know what he wants and would do it. Hence all the logical alternatives I offer.
Your approach to God is denial, not logic. Your 'human logical thoughts' about God are all humanizing. God knows exactly what He is doing. Your bold is totally without logical thought. Read my comment above carefully. My 'no idea' is not your 'no idea'.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Total distortion! God cannot control each protein molecule's actions.
dhw: Why is creating what he wants a distortion? Why do you assume that an all-powerful God’s powers are limited and he was forced to create something he didn’t want to create and tried – sometimes in vain – to rectify?
DAVID: Forced! Crazy comment. God creates exactly what He wishes. What is distorted is your constant claim that God could have made the living biology system with perfect function. Impossible.
My proposal is that the “errors” in the system were exactly what he wished. If he did NOT wish for the errors, then he invented something which could not comply with his wishes, in which case his powers were limited and he was forced to invent something he did not wish for. Hence, according to you, his efforts – sometimes unsuccessful – to provide safeguards against the errors he had not wished for. You can’t have it both ways. Either he is all-powerful and created what he wished (my proposal), or his powers are limited because what he wished for was impossible (your proposal).
dhw: […] when I propose that he actually created the system he WANTED to create – because he did not want to create billions and billions of perfect life forms that would go on multiplying and diversifying but would never die – I am accused of “humanizing” him and making him act without a purpose.
DAVID: Your one lucid moment about recognizing death is builtin, which is not my issue about humanizing: you have Him experimenting and enjoying spectacles.
dhw: Experimenting would remove the discrepancy in your theory between God having only one purpose (us) but spending 3.X billion years directly designing anything but us. Your all-purposeful God must have had a reason for creating the great bush of life, including us, and it is perfectly possible that, as you put it yourself, he enjoys his work much as a painter enjoys his paintings. Of course we can only speculate, but as you so rightly assume, he probably has thought patterns similar to ours.
DAVID: Same mistaken approach. But you always forget that the huge bush gives us the food energy we need for a huge, and growing, human population.
And you seem deliberately to “forget” that life did not begin with humans, and according to you he spent 3.X billion years providing food for millions of non-human life forms, although his only purpose was to design humans. Please stop dodging.
dhw: How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?
DAVID: Your comment about understanding God's logic is impossible to achieve. Whatever logic God used to decided upon His method of evolving us, I am sure it was logical, but He doesn't tell us His logic behind His reasons. How can we understand it?
You’re sure God’s logic is like ours but we can’t understand it! And yet you can understand the logic behind all the alternatives I offer to your personal theory about God’s purpose and method, and the ONLY reason you reject them is that they endow God with patterns of thought similar to ours, although you believe that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours. Silly.
dhw: […] if your all-powerful God had only one purpose (us), why did he spend 3.X billion years NOT designing us but designing millions of now extinct, non-human life forms, econiches etc.? Your answer: no idea.
DAVID: False conclusion. You've totally ignored my two reasons: God runs evolution and chose to evolve humans over time. The huge bush of life provides food for a burgeoning population of humans.
We don’t know how God “runs” evolution – your way (designing everything) or my way (allowing free rein), and once again you forget that according to you he specially designed a huge bush of life and food for thousands of millions of years before humans came on the scene – and you have no idea why. THAT is the illogical part of your theory which you constantly try to dodge.
DAVID: My 'no idea' is not as you always imply. I have 'no idea' why He made the choices He made. I can't know!!! History can only tell us what He did, not why. My interpretation is not your interpretation, which basically is, why wasn't God impatient? Patently humanizing.
You have no idea why he made the choices you have imposed on him! History tells us that there was a vast bush before humans arrived. The rest is your illogical guesswork.
dhw: Goodbye to logic. “Our logic is similar to God’s” = God has no idea either. If God exists, I reckon he would know what he wants and would do it. Hence all the logical alternatives I offer.
DAVID: Your approach to God is denial, not logic. Your 'human logical thoughts' about God are all humanizing. God knows exactly what He is doing. Your bold is totally without logical thought. Read my comment above carefully. My 'no idea' is not your 'no idea'.
Denial of what? I agree that if God exists, he knows exactly what he is doing – hence my different alternatives. Your silly “humanizing” rejection of them is dealt with above.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, July 09, 2020, 21:22 (1596 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: God creates exactly what He wishes. What is distorted is your constant claim that God could have made the living biology system with perfect function. Impossible.
dhw: My proposal is that the “errors” in the system were exactly what he wished. If he did NOT wish for the errors, then he invented something which could not comply with his wishes, in which case his powers were limited and he was forced to invent something he did not wish for. Hence, according to you, his efforts – sometimes unsuccessful – to provide safeguards against the errors he had not wished for. You can’t have it both ways. Either he is all-powerful and created what he wished (my proposal), or his powers are limited because what he wished for was impossible (your proposal).
It is obvious. He cannot have life's molecules avoid errors. Knowing it was not possible, He put in as many safeguards as He could. Totally logical analysis.
DAVID: Same mistaken approach. But you always forget that the huge bush gives us the food energy we need for a huge, and growing, human population.dhw: And you seem deliberately to “forget” that life did not begin with humans, and according to you he spent 3.X billion years providing food for millions of non-human life forms, although his only purpose was to design humans. Please stop dodging.
No dodge. God has the right to choose to evolve us.
DAVID: Your comment about understanding God's logic is impossible to achieve. Whatever logic God used to decided upon His method of evolving us, I am sure it was logical, but He doesn't tell us His logic behind His reasons. How can we understand it?
dhw: You’re sure God’s logic is like ours but we can’t understand it! And yet you can understand the logic behind all the alternatives I offer to your personal theory about God’s purpose and method, and the ONLY reason you reject them is that they endow God with patterns of thought similar to ours, although you believe that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours. Silly.
It is your silliness. You never recognize we cannot know the reasons for His choices or purposes, but we can assume He was logical in making those decisions.
dhw: […] if your all-powerful God had only one purpose (us), why did he spend 3.X billion years NOT designing us but designing millions of now extinct, non-human life forms, econiches etc.? Your answer: no idea.
DAVID: God runs evolution and chose to evolve humans over time. The huge bush of life provides food for a burgeoning population of humans. [/i]
dhw: We don’t know how God “runs” evolution – your way (designing everything) or my way (allowing free rein), and once again you forget that according to you he specially designed a huge bush of life and food for thousands of millions of years before humans came on the scene – and you have no idea why. THAT is the illogical part of your theory which you constantly try to dodge.
Repeated objection. You always imply He should mot have been so patient, again humanizing.
DAVID: My 'no idea' is not as you always imply. I have 'no idea' why He made the choices He made. I can't know!!! History can only tell us what He did, not why. My interpretation is not your interpretation, which basically is, why wasn't God impatient? Patently humanizing.
dhw: You have no idea why he made the choices you have imposed on him! History tells us that there was a vast bush before humans arrived. The rest is your illogical guesswork.
Repeated objection. You always imply He should mot have been so patient, again humanizing.
dhw: Goodbye to logic. “Our logic is similar to God’s” = God has no idea either. If God exists, I reckon he would know what he wants and would do it. Hence all the logical alternatives I offer.DAVID: Your approach to God is denial, not logic. Your 'human logical thoughts' about God are all humanizing. God knows exactly what He is doing. Your bold is totally without logical thought. Read my comment above carefully. My 'no idea' is not your 'no idea'.
dhw: Denial of what? I agree that if God exists, he knows exactly what he is doing – hence my different alternatives. Your silly “humanizing” rejection of them is dealt with above.
Where? You constantly use human logic when describing His thoughts and motives.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: My proposal is that the “errors” in the system were exactly what he wished. If he did NOT wish for the errors, then he invented something which could not comply with his wishes, in which case his powers were limited and he was forced to invent something he did not wish for. Hence, according to you, his efforts – sometimes unsuccessful – to provide safeguards against the errors he had not wished for. You can’t have it both ways. Either he is all-powerful and created what he wished (my proposal), or his powers are limited because what he wished for was impossible (your proposal).
DAVID: It is obvious. He cannot have life's molecules avoid errors. Knowing it was not possible, He put in as many safeguards as He could. Totally logical analysis.
He invented the system. Did he want the errors or didn’t he? If he didn’t want them but could not avoid them, his powers were limited. Exit your all-powerful God. What is your objection to the proposal that he wanted them?
DAVID: Same mistaken approach. But you always forget that the huge bush gives us the food energy we need for a huge, and growing, human population.
dhw: And you seem deliberately to “forget” that life did not begin with humans, and according to you he spent 3.X billion years providing food for millions of non-human life forms, although his only purpose was to design humans. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: No dodge. God has the right to choose to evolve us.
Of course he does. But that does not explain why he chose to “evolve” (= specially design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human bush. Stop dodging!
dhw: You’re sure God’s logic is like ours but we can’t understand it! And yet you can understand the logic behind all the alternatives I offer to your personal theory about God’s purpose and method, and the ONLY reason you reject them is that they endow God with patterns of thought similar to ours, although you believe that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours. Silly.
DAVID: It is your silliness. You never recognize we cannot know the reasons for His choices or purposes, but we can assume He was logical in making those decisions.
I would also assume so. That is why I dispute the section of your theory that makes him act in such a way that you have no idea why he would have done so.
DAVID: My 'no idea' is not as you always imply. I have 'no idea' why He made the choices He made. I can't know!!! History can only tell us what He did, not why. My interpretation is not your interpretation, which basically is, why wasn't God impatient? Patently humanizing.
dhw: You have no idea why he made the choices you have imposed on him! History tells us that there was a vast bush before humans arrived. The rest is your illogical guesswork.
DAVID: Repeated objection. You always imply He should not have been so patient, again humanizing.
I and you have no idea why he would have specially designed millions of extinct non-human life forms,food supplies, natural wonders etc. if his only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply. Nothing to do with patience.
dhw: Goodbye to logic. “Our logic is similar to God’s” = God has no idea either. If God exists, I reckon he would know what he wants and would do it. Hence all the logical alternatives I offer.
DAVID: Your approach to God is denial, not logic. Your 'human logical thoughts' about God are all humanizing. God knows exactly what He is doing. Your bold is totally without logical thought. Read my comment above carefully. My 'no idea' is not your 'no idea'.
dhw: Denial of what? I agree that if God exists, he knows exactly what he is doing – hence my different alternatives. Your silly “humanizing” rejection of them is dealt with above.
DAVID:Where?
Where I wrote: the ONLY reason you reject them [= my alternative explanations of evolution] is that they endow God with patterns of thought similar to ours, although you believe that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours.
DAVID: You constantly use human logic when describing His thoughts and motives.
What other logic can you or I use? You are happy to use human logic when arguing the case for design, but when it comes to your personal theory about God’s nature, purpose and method, all of a sudden God’s logic has to be different from ours although you’re sure it is similar to ours, just as you agree that he probably has thought patterns similar to ours but you reject any theory that entails him having thought patterns similar to ours.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Friday, July 10, 2020, 19:24 (1595 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: It is obvious. He cannot have life's molecules avoid errors. Knowing it was not possible, He put in as many safeguards as He could. Totally logical analysis.
dhw: He invented the system. Did he want the errors or didn’t he? If he didn’t want them but could not avoid them, his powers were limited. Exit your all-powerful God. What is your objection to the proposal that he wanted them?
Yes, His powers cannot stop molecular errors. I know He can't stop them. The evidence being the backup systems in place.
DAVID: God has the right to choose to evolve us.
dhw: Of course he does. But that does not explain why he chose to “evolve” (= specially design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human bush.
How does evolution occur from bacteria to us without evolution? Nutty objection.
DAVID: It is your silliness. You never recognize we cannot know the reasons for His choices or purposes, but we can assume He was logical in making those decisions.dhw: I would also assume so. That is why I dispute the section of your theory that makes him act in such a way that you have no idea why he would have done so.
You've just written we cannot know His reasons for his purposes. Still inconsistent thinking.
DAVID: Repeated objection. You always imply He should not have been so patient, again humanizing.dhw: I and you have no idea why he would have specially designed millions of extinct non-human life forms,food supplies, natural wonders etc. if his only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply. Nothing to do with patience.
Same answer: How does evolution occur from bacteria to us without evolution? The bush gives us the food supply. Where is your logical thinking?
dhw: Denial of what? I agree that if God exists, he knows exactly what he is doing – hence my different alternatives. Your silly “humanizing” rejection of them is dealt with above.
DAVID:Where?
dhw: Where I wrote: the ONLY reason you reject them [= my alternative explanations of evolution] is that they endow God with patterns of thought similar to ours, although you believe that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours.
DAVID: You constantly use human logic when describing His thoughts and motives.
dhw: What other logic can you or I use? You are happy to use human logic when arguing the case for design, but when it comes to your personal theory about God’s nature, purpose and method, all of a sudden God’s logic has to be different from ours although you’re sure it is similar to ours, just as you agree that he probably has thought patterns similar to ours but you reject any theory that entails him having thought patterns similar to ours.
The bold clearly states, finally, yes, He uses the same logic we do. I reject your humanizing thoughts about God's purposes: spectacle, experimenting, and others. Of course his thought patterns and ours may be similar patterns, but it doesn't make us privy to His thoughts (reasoning) that led to his decisions for his purposes.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: It is obvious. He cannot have life's molecules avoid errors. Knowing it was not possible, He put in as many safeguards as He could. Totally logical analysis.
dhw: He invented the system. Did he want the errors or didn’t he? If he didn’t want them but could not avoid them, his powers were limited. Exit your all-powerful God. What is your objection to the proposal that he wanted them?
DAVID: Yes, His powers cannot stop molecular errors. I know He can't stop them. The evidence being the backup systems in place.
If his powers cannot stop something, his powers are limited. Once more: what is your objection to the proposal that he wanted the errors?
DAVID: God has the right to choose to evolve us.
dhw: Of course he does. But that does not explain why he chose to “evolve” (= specially design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human bush.
DAVID: How does evolution occur from bacteria to us without evolution? Nutty objection.
Stop dodging! You believe your all-powerful God directly created every life form. If he only wanted to directly create one life form with food supply, why did he spend 3.X billion years directly creating millions and millions of extinct non-human life forms and food supplies? You have “no idea”, apart from all of them being food supplies for humans who hadn’t yet arrived. A more appropriate question to you would be why you don’t just settle for Genesis: God directly created all the life forms that humans were to have dominion over, and then he directly created sapiens? Just forget about bacteria, and carry on pretending that the 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct, non-human life forms never existed; and forget about "evolution", which is what you also try to do when you insist on direct design.
DAVID: It is your silliness. You never recognize we cannot know the reasons for His choices or purposes, but we can assume He was logical in making those decisions.
dhw: I would also assume so. That is why I dispute the section of your theory that makes him act in such a way that you have no idea why he would have done so.
DAVID: You've just written we cannot know His reasons for his purposes. Still inconsistent thinking.
What are “reasons for purposes”? The purpose is the reason for the action. The action was the creation of life and its development by evolution. According to you the sole reason or purpose for God’s action was to create H. sapiens, and the reason or purpose for his creation of all the life forms etc. that preceded H. sapiens was to provide sapiens with food even though he wasn’t there. How logical is that?
DAVID: How does evolution occur from bacteria to us without evolution? The bush gives us the food supply. Where is your logical thinking?
See what I mean? 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct food supply for us, even though we didn’t exist. Just stick to Genesis and carry on pretending that your God didn’t spend 3.X billion years specially designing food supplies for all the extinct non-humans.
DAVID: You constantly use human logic when describing His thoughts and motives.
dhw: What other logic can you or I use? You are happy to use human logic when arguing the case for design, but when it comes to your personal theory about God’s nature, purpose and method, all of a sudden God’s logic has to be different from ours although you’re sure it is similar to ours, just as you agree that he probably has thought patterns similar to ours but you reject any theory that entails him having thought patterns similar to ours.
DAVID: The bold clearly states, finally, yes, He uses the same logic we do. I reject your humanizing thoughts about God's purposes: spectacle, experimenting, and others. Of course his thought patterns and ours may be similar patterns, but it doesn't make us privy to His thoughts (reasoning) that led to his decisions for his purposes.
We can’t know anything for certain, but if he uses the same logic as we do, and his thought patterns may be similar to ours, then you have no reason for rejecting “humanizing” theories other than the fact that we can’t know whether they are true or not. In that case, please reject your own theory, since you can’t know whether it is true or not.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, July 11, 2020, 15:31 (1594 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Saturday, July 11, 2020, 15:47
DAVID: Yes, His powers cannot stop molecular errors. I know He can't stop them. The evidence being the backup systems in place.
dhw: If his powers cannot stop something, his powers are limited. Once more: what is your objection to the proposal that he wanted the errors?
Because of the corrective measures that are designed to undo them:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6500/155.4?utm_campaign=ec_sci_2020-07-09&am...
The human developmental disorder called Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is caused by mutations that impair the function of cohesin, a protein complex that is important for genome organization and DNA repair. Singh et al. examined placentation in mouse models of CdLS and found evidence of persistent DNA damage, exit from the cell cycle (senescence), and inflammatory cytokine production. This identifies DNA damage responses as an important facet of placenta homeostasis that can affect embryo health. Further studies are needed to determine whether DNA damage responses in the placenta affect embryo development more broadly.
Comment: just a reminder, corrective mechanisms are everywhere for a reason. God anticipated the errors.
DAVID: How does evolution occur from bacteria to us without evolution? Nutty objection.
dhw: Stop dodging! You believe your all-powerful God directly created every life form. If he only wanted to directly create one life form with food supply, why did he spend 3.X billion years directly creating millions and millions of extinct non-human life forms and food supplies?
The bold tells us of your blind thoughts about God. Humans were a goal, not the method to reach their creation. Confused mixed up thinking.
DAVID: You've just written we cannot know His reasons for his purposes. Still inconsistent thinking.dhw: What are “reasons for purposes”? The purpose is the reason for the action. The action was the creation of life and its development by evolution. According to you the sole reason or purpose for God’s action was to create H. sapiens, and the reason or purpose for his creation of all the life forms etc. that preceded H. sapiens was to provide sapiens with food even though he wasn’t there. How logical is that?
More confused thought. The huge bush of econiches feeds everyone. when humans arrive and their population grows larger enough food is present. Precise designer planning for the future. Purpose is not reason. There Are always reasons behind purpose!!! We cannot know those. I agree purpose drives action, but doesn't tell us the reasons for choice of action.
DAVID: You constantly use human logic when describing His thoughts and motives.
dhw: What other logic can you or I use? You are happy to use human logic when arguing the case for design, but when it comes to your personal theory about God’s nature, purpose and method, all of a sudden God’s logic has to be different from ours although you’re sure it is similar to ours, just as you agree that he probably has thought patterns similar to ours but you reject any theory that entails him having thought patterns similar to ours.
DAVID: The bold clearly states, finally, yes, He uses the same logic we do. I reject your humanizing thoughts about God's purposes: spectacle, experimenting, and others. Of course his thought patterns and ours may be similar patterns, but it doesn't make us privy to His thoughts (reasoning) that led to his decisions for his purposes.
dhw: We can’t know anything for certain, but if he uses the same logic as we do, and his thought patterns may be similar to ours, then you have no reason for rejecting “humanizing” theories other than the fact that we can’t know whether they are true or not. In that case, please reject your own theory, since you can’t know whether it is true or not.
Of course both you and are are theorizing. You like your thoughts, I like mine as this long train of discussion shows.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Yes, His powers cannot stop molecular errors. I know He can't stop them. The evidence being the backup systems in place.
dhw: If his powers cannot stop something, his powers are limited. Once more: what is your objection to the proposal that he wanted the errors?
DAVID: Because of the corrective measures that are designed to undo them:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6500/155.4?utm_campaign=ec_sci_2020-07-09&am...
QUOTE: The human developmental disorder called Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is caused by mutations that impair the function of cohesin, a protein complex that is important for genome organization and DNA repair […]
DAVID: just a reminder, corrective mechanisms are everywhere for a reason. God anticipated the errors.
You have described an error which disrupts a corrective system! But as with the immune system, corrective mechanisms boil down to the cells continually devising (or failing to devise) remedies for errors as they occur. The mechanism, I would suggest, is the perhaps God-given intelligence of the cells. Meanwhile, (a) if your God’s powers cannot prevent errors, his powers are limited, and (b) even your proposal that your God provided corrective measures that sometimes work and sometimes don’t work does not disprove the theory that he deliberately created the errors in the first place, since the immortality of every creature would rapidly have led to sheer chaos on Planet Earth.
DAVID: How does evolution occur from bacteria to us without evolution? Nutty objection.
dhw: Stop dodging! You believe your all-powerful God directly created every life form. If he only wanted to directly create one life form with food supply, why did he spend 3.X billion years directly creating millions and millions of extinct non-human life forms and food supplies?
DAVID: The bold tells us of your blind thoughts about God. Humans were a goal, not the method to reach their creation. Confused mixed up thinking.
I’m afraid I don’t understand your statement. According to you, humans were THE goal, and in order to achieve his goal, he specially designed billions of now extinct NON-HUMAN life forms, econiches, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc. But, understandably, you have no idea why he chose such a method.
DAVID: More confused thought. The huge bush of econiches feeds everyone. when humans arrive and their population grows larger enough food is present.
But 99% of the huge bush of specially designed, food-supplying econiches had disappeared by the time humans arrived!
DAVID: Precise designer planning for the future. Purpose is not reason. There Are always reasons behind purpose!!! We cannot know those. I agree purpose drives action, but doesn't tell us the reasons for choice of action.
“Purpose: the reason for which anything is done, created or exists” (Encarta). According to you the reason why, or purpose for which, your God created life was to create H. sapiens. Yes or no? And according to you the reason why, or purpose for which, your God specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. was to provide food for humans who did not yet exist. Believe that if you will, but don’t tell me it’s logical, or that you know the purpose or reason for the billions of non-human life forms etc. but you can’t know the purpose or reason for them.
DAVID: Of course his thought patterns and ours may be similar patterns, but it doesn't make us privy to His thoughts (reasoning) that led to his decisions for his purposes.
dhw: We can’t know anything for certain, but if he uses the same logic as we do, and his thought patterns may be similar to ours, then you have no reason for rejecting “humanizing” theories other than the fact that we can’t know whether they are true or not. In that case, please reject your own theory, since you can’t know whether it is true or not.
DAVID: Of course both you and I are theorizing. You like your thoughts, I like mine as this long train of discussion shows.
And the discussion so far has shown that you have no idea why your God would have chosen the method you impose on him for achieving the purpose you impose on him, you agree that the alternative “humanizing” purposes and methods I have proposed are perfectly logical and God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, but you reject them because we can’t know whether any of them are true, and so you will stick to your own illogical theory, although we can’t know whether that is true either.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, July 12, 2020, 18:28 (1593 days ago) @ dhw
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6500/155.4?utm_campaign=ec_sci_2020-07-09&am...
QUOTE: The human developmental disorder called Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS) is caused by mutations that impair the function of cohesin, a protein complex that is important for genome organization and DNA repair […]
DAVID: just a reminder, corrective mechanisms are everywhere for a reason. God anticipated the errors.
dhw: You have described an error which disrupts a corrective system! But as with the immune system, corrective mechanisms boil down to the cells continually devising (or failing to devise) remedies for errors as they occur. The mechanism, I would suggest, is the perhaps God-given intelligence of the cells. Meanwhile, (a) if your God’s powers cannot prevent errors, his powers are limited, and (b) even your proposal that your God provided corrective measures that sometimes work and sometimes don’t work does not disprove the theory that he deliberately created the errors in the first place, since the immortality of every creature would rapidly have led to sheer chaos on Planet Earth.
Certainly death has to be builtin.
DAVID: The bold tells us of your blind thoughts about God. Humans were a goal, not the method to reach their creation. Confused mixed up thinking.
dhw: I’m afraid I don’t understand your statement. According to you, humans were THE goal, and in order to achieve his goal, he specially designed billions of now extinct NON-HUMAN life forms, econiches, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc. But, understandably, you have no idea why he chose such a method.
His method, evolution, requires exactly what you illogically complain about.
DAVID: More confused thought. The huge bush of econiches feeds everyone. when humans arrive and their population grows larger enough food is present.dhw: But 99% of the huge bush of specially designed, food-supplying econiches had disappeared by the time humans arrived!
More disjointed thought. Where is the room for all those lost species? You support death above!
DAVID: Precise designer planning for the future. Purpose is not reason. There Are always reasons behind purpose!!! We cannot know those. I agree purpose drives action, but doesn't tell us the reasons for choice of action.dhw: “Purpose: the reason for which anything is done, created or exists” (Encarta). According to you the reason why, or purpose for which, your God created life was to create H. sapiens. Yes or no? And according to you the reason why, or purpose for which, your God specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. was to provide food for humans who did not yet exist. Believe that if you will, but don’t tell me it’s logical, or that you know the purpose or reason for the billions of non-human life forms etc. but you can’t know the purpose or reason for them.
Same confusion about God, in charge, choosing to evolve us from bacteria
DAVID: Of course his thought patterns and ours may be similar patterns, but it doesn't make us privy to His thoughts (reasoning) that led to his decisions for his purposes.dhw: We can’t know anything for certain, but if he uses the same logic as we do, and his thought patterns may be similar to ours, then you have no reason for rejecting “humanizing” theories other than the fact that we can’t know whether they are true or not. In that case, please reject your own theory, since you can’t know whether it is true or not.
DAVID: Of course both you and I are theorizing. You like your thoughts, I like mine as this long train of discussion shows.
dhw: And the discussion so far has shown that you have no idea why your God would have chosen the method you impose on him for achieving the purpose you impose on him, you agree that the alternative “humanizing” purposes and methods I have proposed are perfectly logical and God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, but you reject them because we can’t know whether any of them are true, and so you will stick to your own illogical theory, although we can’t know whether that is true either.
Still illogical. The bold is not my imposition! The history of evolution tells us His choice of method. Remember my view that God creates reality. Your proposals are all about a humanizing a God who isn't quite sure what He is dong as He experiments or invents spectacles to watch.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: […] (a) if your God’s powers cannot prevent errors, his powers are limited, and (b) even your proposal that your God provided corrective measures that sometimes work and sometimes don’t work does not disprove the theory that he deliberately created the errors in the first place, since the immortality of every creature would rapidly have led to sheer chaos on Planet Earth.
DAVID: Certainly death has to be builtin.
And death is caused by “errors” in the system, which means your God wanted death and therefore wanted the built-in errors. Away with the limited powers you illogically ascribe to your all-powerful God.
Under “Immunity system complexity”: Yet the immune system is so sophisticated, with layers upon layers of brakes, that existing approaches may be “just scratching the surface,” says Peng." (DAVID's bold)
DAVID: I've used the article on cancer therapy to show the degree of immune complexity (note the bold), and our new-found ability to analyze it and tailor it to create therapies. Thank goodness God gave us this big brain that can be used to improve on His designs.
I would suggest that the complexity of the immune system has evolved “layer upon layer” as the cells have created their own defences against disease after disease, gradually building up a library of responses. I have doubts about an all-powerful God who finds it impossible to create a system without errors, while clever humans manage to correct his errors. Gosh, we are cleverer than God! I reckon that if he exists, he would have created the errors deliberately (see above), but gave cells the intelligence to correct some of them (I suspect that even pre-human animals had an immune system!) though of course I agree that humans have used their extraordinary intelligence to broaden the range of responses available to our fellow organisms.
DAVID: The bold tells us of your blind thoughts about God. Humans were a goal, not the method to reach their creation. Confused mixed up thinking.
dhw: I’m afraid I don’t understand your statement. According to you, humans were THE goal, and in order to achieve his goal, he specially designed billions of now extinct NON-HUMAN life forms, econiches, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc. But, understandably, you have no idea why he chose such a method.
DAVID: His method, evolution, requires exactly what you illogically complain about.
But according to you, all the life forms, econiches, lifestyles etc. were directly designed by your God. You use the word “evolution” to cover your Creationism in your attempt to dodge the question of why your God would choose to spend 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: More confused thought. The huge bush of econiches feeds everyone. when humans arrive and their population grows larger enough food is present.
dhw: But 99% of the huge bush of specially designed, food-supplying econiches had disappeared by the time humans arrived!
DAVID: More disjointed thought. Where is the room for all those lost species? You support death above!
And the question you keep dodging is why he specially designed them all in the first place if his only purpose was to design us! Your only answer is that you have no idea. I offer you answers: maybe he was experimenting, or maybe humans came late on in his thinking, or maybe humans were not his one and only purpose, and maybe he didn’t directly design the vast bush but created a mechanism whereby organisms did their own autonomous designing. All these ideas provide a logical explanation for the history, whereas you have “no idea” how to explain your own interpretation of that history.
DAVID: Of course both you and I are theorizing. You like your thoughts, I like mine as this long train of discussion shows.
dhw: And the discussion so far has shown that you have no idea why your God would have chosen the method you impose on him for achieving the purpose you impose on him, you agree that the alternative “humanizing” purposes and methods I have proposed are perfectly logical and God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, but you reject them because we can’t know whether any of them are true, and so you will stick to your own illogical theory, although we can’t know whether that is true either.
DAVID: Still illogical. The bold is not my imposition! The history of evolution tells us His choice of method. Remember my view that God creates reality. Your proposals are all about a humanizing a God who isn't quite sure what He is dong as He experiments or invents spectacles to watch.
I will keep my theist hat on, and for argument’s sake accept the existence of God. It is your subjective interpretation of the history that (a) God is all-powerful, all-knowing and always in control (except when he makes errors); b) his only purpose was to create H. sapiens, (c) he directly designed every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. that ever existed. These are opinions which you impose on your God as if they were facts. Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, July 13, 2020, 17:23 (1592 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Certainly death has to be builtin.
dhw: And death is caused by “errors” in the system, which means your God wanted death and therefore wanted the built-in errors. Away with the limited powers you illogically ascribe to your all-powerful God.
Error!!! Death is caused by 'aging', which is wearing out of systems, not meant to last forever. It is a requirement to clear the way for newly arrived. How does wanting death reduce God's powers? More illogical thinking.
dhw: Under “Immunity system complexity”: Yet the immune system is so sophisticated, with layers upon layers of brakes, that existing approaches may be “just scratching the surface,” says Peng." (DAVID's bold)DAVID: I've used the article on cancer therapy to show the degree of immune complexity (note the bold), and our new-found ability to analyze it and tailor it to create therapies. Thank goodness God gave us this big brain that can be used to improve on His designs.
dhw: I would suggest that the complexity of the immune system has evolved “layer upon layer” as the cells have created their own defences against disease after disease, gradually building up a library of responses. I have doubts about an all-powerful God who finds it impossible to create a system without errors, while clever humans manage to correct his errors.
Again totally illogical. Not God's errors but errors of life's functioning molecules
DAVID: His method, evolution, requires exactly what you illogically complain about.
dhw: But according to you, all the life forms, econiches, lifestyles etc. were directly designed by your God. You use the word “evolution” to cover your Creationism in your attempt to dodge the question of why your God would choose to spend 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop dodging.
Never dodge. Evolution, requires exactly what you illogically complain about.
dhw: And the question you keep dodging is why he specially designed them all in the first place if his only purpose was to design us! Your only answer is that you have no idea.
Right! God evolved us and I cannot know His reasons why. You don't know either.
dhw: I offer you answers: maybe he was experimenting, or maybe humans came late on in his thinking, or maybe humans were not his one and only purpose, and maybe he didn’t directly design the vast bush but created a mechanism whereby organisms did their own autonomous designing. All these ideas provide a logical explanation for the history, whereas you have “no idea” how to explain your own interpretation of that history.
My interpretation is simple: God creates reality, the history of which tells us what He did, not why.
DAVID: Of course both you and I are theorizing. You like your thoughts, I like mine as this long train of discussion shows.dhw: I will keep my theist hat on, and for argument’s sake accept the existence of God. It is your subjective interpretation of the history that (a) God is all-powerful, all-knowing and always in control (except when he makes errors); b) his only purpose was to create H. sapiens, (c) he directly designed every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. that ever existed. These are opinions which you impose on your God as if they were facts. Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
First error bolded: molecules make errors not God. Second error bolded: we cannot know God's thoughts behind His reasons for His actions. All we can know, not guess, is God's logic is like our logic. Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, July 13, 2020, 19:20 (1592 days ago) @ David Turell
dhw: I would suggest that the complexity of the immune system has evolved “layer upon layer” as the cells have created their own defences against disease after disease, gradually building up a library of responses. I have doubts about an all-powerful God who finds it impossible to create a system without errors, while clever humans manage to correct his errors.
DAVID: Again totally illogical. Not God's errors but errors of life's functioning molecules
Here is an article on correcting molecular errors in mitochondrial DNA:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mitochondria-gene-editing-bacterial-toxin-crispr
"A protein secreted by bacteria to kill other microbes has been re-engineered to tweak DNA inaccessible to other gene editors, scientists report online July 8 in Nature. The advance paves the way for one day fixing mutations in mitochondria. Those energy-producing organelles are inherited from a mother and have their own DNA, distinct from the genetic information — from both parents — that’s stored in a cell’s nucleus.
***
"Mutations in mitochondrial DNA cause over 150 distinct syndromes and affect 1,000 to 4,000 children born in the United States each year. There are no cures for these diseases and currently, the only way to prevent a child from inheriting dysfunctional mitochondria is a controversial “three-parent baby” method (SN: 12/14/16). This in vitro fertilization technique requires mitochondria from a donor egg, in addition to genetic information from a mother and father.
***
"The toxin secreted by the bacteria Burkholderia cenocepacia unexpectedly proved to be the solution needed to create a mitochondria-friendly base editor. Marcos de Moraes, a microbiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, deduced that the toxin killed bacteria by causing disruptive DNA mutations. But for months, he couldn’t untangle how the process worked at a molecular level. He was on the verge of moving on from the project when a single late-night experiment made everything fall into place.
***
"The new cytosine-converting enzyme, however, was as lethal to mammalian cells as it was to bacterial prey. The first step in “taming the beast” was modifying the toxin so it didn’t just indiscriminately mess up double-stranded DNA, Liu says. The researchers split the protein into nontoxic halves; the two pieces changed cytosine to thymine only when they were brought together to the same spot of DNA.
***
"To direct the enzyme halves’ activity, the researchers attached TALE proteins, short pieces of protein that could be chosen to target specific stretches of DNA. In cell culture experiments, the mitochondrial editor successfully converted cytosine to thymine at intended mitochondrial DNA locations, with efficiencies ranging from 5 to 49 percent.
"Future work will aim to improve efficiency, develop new types of mitochondrial editors that can produce other DNA base changes, and see if mitochondrial gene editing works in animals.
“'This is just the first step,” says Shoukhrat Mitalipov, a mitochondrial biologist at the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland who was not involved in the work. “But in the right direction.'”
Comment: Thank goodness for our brilliant brain which can solve problems caused by molecular mistakes (bad mutations) in DNA. It is logical to hypothesize that God knew there would be molecular errors that we might be able to correct. I imagine dhw will again crow over these admissions that living mechanisms make mistakes. It is the reality we have to experience.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Certainly death has to be builtin.
dhw: And death is caused by “errors” in the system, which means your God wanted death and therefore wanted the built-in errors. Away with the limited powers you illogically ascribe to your all-powerful God.
DAVID: Error!!! Death is caused by 'aging', which is wearing out of systems, not meant to last forever. It is a requirement to clear the way for newly arrived. How does wanting death reduce God's powers? More illogical thinking.
I’m surprised that in your career as a doctor you never came across young people dying of cancer, heart disease and other malfunctions of the system your God created. Wanting death does NOT reduce God’s powers! What gave you that idea? I am proposing that he wanted ALL the errors. It is you who reduce God’s powers by telling us he was incapable of designing a biological system without errors!
dhw: I would suggest that the complexity of the immune system has evolved “layer upon layer” as the cells have created their own defences against disease after disease, gradually building up a library of responses. I have doubts about an all-powerful God who finds it impossible to create a system without errors, while clever humans manage to correct his errors.
DAVID: Again totally illogical. Not God's errors but errors of life's functioning molecules
And who, according to you, created life’s functioning and error-strewn molecules? You say the errors were beyond his control. I suggest they were incorporated deliberately. Which of us is limiting God’s powers?
DAVID: Here is an article on correcting molecular errors in mitochondrial DNA:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mitochondria-gene-editing-bacterial-toxin-crispr
QUOTE: Mutations in mitochondrial DNA cause over 150 distinct syndromes and affect 1,000 to 4,000 children born in the United States each year. There are no cures for these diseases.
DAVID: Thank goodness for our brilliant brain which can solve problems caused by molecular mistakes (bad mutations) in DNA. It is logical to hypothesize that God knew there would be molecular errors that we might be able to correct. I imagine dhw will again crow over these admissions that living mechanisms make mistakes. It is the reality we have to experience.
I do not “crow” over them. I am well aware of the reality of the mistakes in the system. I have even suffered from some of them myself! This is you twisting my arguments! I merely point out that your God created a system full of errors. You say he couldn’t avoid doing so, and you praise humans for correcting the errors your God could not avoid making, which makes us smarter than him. I don’t believe it. If I believed in God, I would believe that he would create what he wanted to create, which means he wanted to create the mistakes. You have him only wanting to create the mistakes that would make old people die, but not the mistakes (often exactly the same) that make young people die. How logical is that?
dhw: But according to you, all the life forms, econiches, lifestyles etc. were directly designed by your God. You use the word “evolution” to cover your Creationism in your attempt to dodge the question of why your God would choose to spend 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop dodging.
DAVID: God evolved us and I cannot know His reasons why. You don't know either.
You use the word “evolve” misleadingly, since you believe that your God directly creates all species. And I am asking why you think he directly created all the preceding non-human life forms etc. if he only wanted to directly create us. Nobody knows why God, if he exists, created life – but you insist that you do know why. According to you, he created life for the sole purpose of producing us. Nobody knows how speciation happened, but according to you, it was directly designed by your God. Hence the illogicality of your all-powerful God, who only wanted one species (plus food supply), directly designing 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human species plus food supplies.
DAVID: My interpretation is simple: God creates reality, the history of which tells us what He did, not why.
If God exists, nobody could possibly disagree with that statement. But that is not the end of your interpretation! You tell us why, and you tell us how, and the two together make no sense, as you acknowledge when you say you have no idea why he would have chosen to design the vast bush in order to produce us. You then reject logical alternatives on the silly grounds that they “humanize” God (see below) and that nobody knows the truth – which applies to all theories.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
DAVID: […] we cannot know God's thoughts behind His reasons for His actions. All we can know, not guess, is God's logic is like our logic. Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
If God’s logic is like our logic, it should make sense to us. You constantly claim that I twist your arguments. Please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 14, 2020, 18:38 (1591 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Error!!! Death is caused by 'aging', which is wearing out of systems, not meant to last forever. It is a requirement to clear the way for newly arrived. How does wanting death reduce God's powers? More illogical thinking.
dhw: I’m surprised that in your career as a doctor you never came across young people dying of cancer, heart disease and other malfunctions of the system your God created. Wanting death does NOT reduce God’s powers! What gave you that idea? I am proposing that he wanted ALL the errors. It is you who reduce God’s powers by telling us he was incapable of designing a biological system without errors!
I know full well about early deaths.
dhw: And who, according to you, created life’s functioning and error-strewn molecules? You say the errors were beyond his control. I suggest they were incorporated deliberately. Which of us is limiting God’s powers?
Can't I be honest about God's powers? It is you who are worried about limitations
DAVID: Here is an article on correcting molecular errors in mitochondrial DNA:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mitochondria-gene-editing-bacterial-toxin-crisprQUOTE: Mutations in mitochondrial DNA cause over 150 distinct syndromes and affect 1,000 to 4,000 children born in the United States each year. There are no cures for these diseases.
DAVID: Thank goodness for our brilliant brain which can solve problems caused by molecular mistakes (bad mutations) in DNA. It is logical to hypothesize that God knew there would be molecular errors that we might be able to correct. I imagine dhw will again crow over these admissions that living mechanisms make mistakes. It is the reality we have to experience.
dhw: If I believed in God, I would believe that he would create what he wanted to create, which means he wanted to create the mistakes. You have him only wanting to create the mistakes that would make old people die, but not the mistakes (often exactly the same) that make young people die. How logical is that?
I recognize old and young deaths. You've again twisted my statements illogically.
DAVID: God evolved us and I cannot know His reasons why. You don't know either.dhw: You use the word “evolve” misleadingly, since you believe that your God directly creates all species. And I am asking why you think he directly created all the preceding non-human life forms etc. if he only wanted to directly create us. Nobody knows why God, if he exists, created life – but you insist that you do know why. According to you, he created life for the sole purpose of producing us. Nobody knows how speciation happened, but according to you, it was directly designed by your God. Hence the illogicality of your all-powerful God, who only wanted one species (plus food supply), directly designing 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human species plus food supplies.
Again a strange humanizing of God, who should not have waited to evolve humans over time.
DAVID: My interpretation is simple: God creates reality, the history of which tells us what He did, not why.dhw: If God exists, nobody could possibly disagree with that statement. But that is not the end of your interpretation! You tell us why, and you tell us how, and the two together make no sense, as you acknowledge when you say you have no idea why he would have chosen to design the vast bush in order to produce us. You then reject logical alternatives on the silly grounds that they “humanize” God (see below) and that nobody knows the truth – which applies to all theories.
I am allowed, as you are, to theorize about God's purposes. Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.DAVID: […] we cannot know God's thoughts behind His reasons for His actions. All we can know, not guess, is God's logic is like our logic. Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: If God’s logic is like our logic, it should make sense to us. You constantly claim that I twist your arguments. Please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Error!!! Death is caused by 'aging', which is wearing out of systems, not meant to last forever. It is a requirement to clear the way for newly arrived. How does wanting death reduce God's powers? More illogical thinking.
dhw: I’m surprised that in your career as a doctor you never came across young people dying of cancer, heart disease and other malfunctions of the system your God created. Wanting death does NOT reduce God’s powers! What gave you that idea? I am proposing that he wanted ALL the errors. It is you who reduce God’s powers by telling us he was incapable of designing a biological system without errors!
DAVID: I know full well about early deaths.
So why have you told us that death is caused by aging, and that was what God wanted? Old people and young people die from the same diseases, so which "mistakes" did he want (deliberate) and which ones didn't he want (unavoidable)?
dhw: You say the errors were beyond his control. I suggest they were incorporated deliberately. Which of us is limiting God’s powers?
DAVID: Can't I be honest about God's powers? It is you who are worried about limitations.
I am not in the least worried about limitations. One of my explanations of evolution is that God was experimenting, and you objected because your God knows everything and can do anything he wants. What worries me is that at one moment you are telling us that your God is all-powerful and always in control, and the next moment he has limitations, but mysteriously this case is less “humanizing” than a God who does what he wants to do.
DAVID: God evolved us and I cannot know His reasons why. You don't know either.
dhw: You use the word “evolve” misleadingly, since you believe that your God directly creates all species. And I am asking why you think he directly created all the preceding non-human life forms etc. if he only wanted to directly create us. Nobody knows why God, if he exists, created life – but you insist that you do know why. According to you, he created life for the sole purpose of producing us. Nobody knows how speciation happened, but according to you, it was directly designed by your God. Hence the illogicality of your all-powerful God, who only wanted one species (plus food supply), directly designing 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human species plus food supplies.
DAVID: Again a strange humanizing of God, who should not have waited to evolve humans over time.
Again dodging the issue, which is not evolution over time but your claim bolded above. “Humanizing” is a non-argument from someone who agrees that his God probably has thought patterns similar to ours. Please stop harping on it.
DAVID: My interpretation is simple: God creates reality, the history of which tells us what He did, not why.
dhw: If God exists, nobody could possibly disagree with that statement. But that is not the end of your interpretation! You tell us why, and you tell us how, and the two together make no sense, as you acknowledge when you say you have no idea why he would have chosen to design the vast bush in order to produce us. You then reject logical alternatives on the silly grounds that they “humanize” God (see below) and that nobody knows the truth – which applies to all theories.
DAVID: I am allowed, as you are, to theorize about God's purposes. Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God.
We are not dealing with his reasons for wanting humans. We are dealing with the claim that for 3.x billion years he directly designed millions of non-humans, although his only purpose was to directly design humans. Stop dodging!
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
DAVID: […] we cannot know God's thoughts behind His reasons for His actions. All we can know, not guess, is God's logic is like our logic. Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: If God’s logic is like our logic, it should make sense to us. You constantly claim that I twist your arguments. Please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God.
As above, we are not dealing with his reasons for wanting humans. Now please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted. If you cannot do so, then please withdraw the accusation.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 15, 2020, 14:46 (1590 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: So why have you told us that death is caused by aging, and that was what God wanted? Old people and young people die from the same diseases, so which "mistakes" did he want (deliberate) and which ones didn't he want (unavoidable)?
Unavoidable, was explained: molecular errors in high speed reactions. Older organisms have lots more errors. 'Aging' is built in purposely. All have to die.
dhw: You say the errors were beyond his control. I suggest they were incorporated deliberately. Which of us is limiting God’s powers?DAVID: Can't I be honest about God's powers? It is you who are worried about limitations.
dhw: I am not in the least worried about limitations. One of my explanations of evolution is that God was experimenting, and you objected because your God knows everything and can do anything he wants. What worries me is that at one moment you are telling us that your God is all-powerful and always in control, and the next moment he has limitations, but mysteriously this case is less “humanizing” than a God who does what he wants to do.
God does what He wants to do, and His inventions have limits. So? doesn't bother me.
DAVID: My interpretation is simple: God creates reality, the history of which tells us what He did, not why.dhw: If God exists, nobody could possibly disagree with that statement. But that is not the end of your interpretation! You tell us why, and you tell us how, and the two together make no sense, as you acknowledge when you say you have no idea why he would have chosen to design the vast bush in order to produce us. You then reject logical alternatives on the silly grounds that they “humanize” God (see below) and that nobody knows the truth – which applies to all theories.
DAVID: I am allowed, as you are, to theorize about God's purposes. Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God.
dhw: We are not dealing with his reasons for wanting humans. We are dealing with the claim that for 3.x billion years he directly designed millions of non-humans, although his only purpose was to directly design humans. Stop dodging!
No dodging. Your analysis of God's actions is faulty; God can be patient and not rush his creations
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.DAVID: […] we cannot know God's thoughts behind His reasons for His actions. All we can know, not guess, is God's logic is like our logic. Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: If God’s logic is like our logic, it should make sense to us. You constantly claim that I twist your arguments. Please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God.
dhw: As above, we are not dealing with his reasons for wanting humans. Now please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted. If you cannot do so, then please withdraw the accusation.
The exchange is clear. You want reasons for God's choices of action. I cannot know them and neither can you.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: So why have you told us that death is caused by aging, and that was what God wanted? Old people and young people die from the same diseases, so which "mistakes" did he want (deliberate) and which ones didn't he want (unavoidable)?
DAVID: Unavoidable, was explained: molecular errors in high speed reactions. Older organisms have lots more errors. 'Aging' is built in purposely. All have to die.
The fact that old organisms suffer from more of the same "mistakes" than young organisms does not alter the fact that all the mistakes can cause death. Now you seem to be telling us that the only deliberately caused death is death by old age! I wonder how many death certificates you signed with “old age” as the cause of death. Please tell us why you are so opposed to the theory that an all-powerful God deliberately created the “errors” in the system.
dhw: What worries me is that at one moment you are telling us that your God is all-powerful and always in control, and the next moment he has limitations, but mysteriously this case is less “humanizing” than a God who does what he wants to do.
DAVID: God does what He wants to do, and His inventions have limits. So? doesn't bother me.
I’m happy with that. It means that he wanted his inventions to have limits. It clearly does NOT mean that the limits were beyond his control. This at last would give some consistency to your claim that your God is all-powerful and always in control.
DAVID: I am allowed, as you are, to theorize about God's purposes. Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God.
dhw: We are not dealing with his reasons for wanting humans. We are dealing with the claim that for 3.x billion years he directly designed millions of non-humans, although his only purpose was to directly design humans. Stop dodging!
DAVID: No dodging. Your analysis of God's actions is faulty; God can be patient and not rush his creations.
We are not talking about God’s patience. We are talking about the claim that he only had one purpose – to specially design us (and our food supplies)– had the power to do so, but spent 3.X billion years specially designing other life forms (and their food supplies) . You admit that you have no idea why he designed all those other extinct life forms (plus food supplies) instead of the only one (plus food supplies) he wanted to design, and so I am suggesting that YOUR analysis of your God’s actions is faulty.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
DAVID: […] we cannot know God's thoughts behind His reasons for His actions. All we can know, not guess, is God's logic is like our logic. Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted. If you cannot do so, then please withdraw the accusation.
DAVID: The exchange is clear. You want reasons for God's choices of action. I cannot know them and neither can you.
No one can “know” any of the answers, but you have offered us the theory bolded above. Now please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Thursday, July 16, 2020, 19:35 (1589 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Unavoidable, was explained: molecular errors in high speed reactions. Older organisms have lots more errors. 'Aging' is built in purposely. All have to die.
dhw: The fact that old organisms suffer from more of the same "mistakes" than young organisms does not alter the fact that all the mistakes can cause death... Please tell us why you are so opposed to the theory that an all-powerful God deliberately created the “errors” in the system.
You've avoided my direct statement of fact that ageing & death are both built into the system purposely. Old has to clear out for new. God built in ageing. Errors of rapidly reacting molecules are never His fault. The biological errors were expected by God, as shown by all the backup systems He designed into place.
DAVID: God does what He wants to do, and His inventions have limits. So? doesn't bother me.dhw: I’m happy with that. It means that he wanted his inventions to have limits. It clearly does NOT mean that the limits were beyond his control. This at last would give some consistency to your claim that your God is all-powerful and always in control.
Opposite interpretation, as usual. Repeated: Errors of rapidly reacting molecules are never His fault. The biological errors were expected by God, as shown by all the backup systems He designed into place. He tried to correct all errors and couldn't
DAVID: I am allowed, as you are, to theorize about God's purposes. Logic does not tell us God's reasons for wanting humans!!! You are not logical about God.dhw: We are not dealing with his reasons for wanting humans. We are dealing with the claim that for 3.x billion years he directly designed millions of non-humans, although his only purpose was to directly design humans. Stop dodging!
DAVID: No dodging. Your analysis of God's actions is faulty; God can be patient and not rush his creations.
dhw: We are not talking about God’s patience. We are talking about the claim that he only had one purpose – to specially design us (and our food supplies)– had the power to do so, but spent 3.X billion years specially designing other life forms (and their food supplies) . You admit that you have no idea why he designed all those other extinct life forms (plus food supplies) instead of the only one (plus food supplies) he wanted to design, and so I am suggesting that YOUR analysis of your God’s actions is faulty.
My analysis is based on Adler's argument, which you recognize is strong. and you rebuttal above refuses to accept the idea God can choose any method of creation He wants, something you always scurry back to when challenged with.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.DAVID: […] we cannot know God's thoughts behind His reasons for His actions. All we can know, not guess, is God's logic is like our logic. Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted. If you cannot do so, then please withdraw the accusation.
DAVID: The exchange is clear. You want reasons for God's choices of action. I cannot know them and neither can you.
dhw: No one can “know” any of the answers, but you have offered us the theory bolded above. Now please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
God has chosen to evolve us, and you keep saying that is wrong. It is my theory.
Back to David's theory of evolution: planned death
by David Turell , Thursday, July 16, 2020, 22:08 (1589 days ago) @ David Turell
Much of cell death is planned:
https://evolutionnews.org/2020/07/in-cell-death-a-stunning-display-of-intelligent-design/
"Cells only have the physical disposal to contend with, so in the following discussion, one must not draw comparisons too tightly between human death and cell death.
"To a cell, dying really is a part of life. In fact, billions of cells die in the process of embryonic development, as our organs, fingers, and tissues are sculpted. That’s a wonderful thing. Nevertheless, tissues face real challenges in all stages of cell death, from deciding what cells need to bow out, to disposing of the “corpses” afterward. The cellular morgue is exquisitely designed for the challenge.
***
"While living, the cell keeps its lysosomes and proteasomes (molecular machines that recycle substrates) busy dismantling spent proteins and sending the components to recycling centers. Eventually, the whole cell’s work is done, or worse, has become infected and needs to commit hara-kiri. There’s an app for that. Apoptosis, programmed cell death, is a suite of tools and operations. Cells contain self-destruction kits, like spies with poison pills for use if captured. The poison pills consist primarily of the caspase family of proteins. Numbered caspase-1 through -14, these enzymes cut through (“cleave”) molecules like buzz saws.
***
"Processing of the apoptotic cell by the actions of activated caspases and their substrates, encapsulation of the cell into apoptotic bodies, and its subsequent disposal and recycling by surrounding phagocytic cells prevent the release of proinflammatory cellular contents and inflammation.
***
"Numerous actors come onto the stage when the apoptosis signal is triggered. In a sequence of steps, caspase-3 activates two other enzymes that create “find-me” signals that are sent out to attract wandering macrophages.
***
"In addition to the “find-me” signal, cells can post “eat-me” and “don’t-eat-me” tags on their outer membranes. Because don’t-eat-me tags take priority, these act as Boolean logic gates. The eat-me signal only activates the macrophage if the don’t-eat-me tag has been removed. Consequently, part of apoptosis includes removing the don’t-eat-me tags. This ensures that macrophages do not destroy healthy cells.
***
"Now that the phagocyte has found the cell to eat, how does it engulf the dying cell?
"Efferocytosis is a tightly regulated process involving the coordinated engulfment of dead and dying cells, maturation of the phagosome and then breakdown of phagolysosomal contents. Each stage is governed by molecular mechanisms that allow rapid breakdown of the engulfed cell and recovery of the engulfing phagocyte.
***
"A dizzying paragraph in the paper describes some 30 tools that create the “phagosome” (eating-body) that surrounds the dying cell or pathogen to engulf it safely without harming the phagocyte. The phagosome then delivers the contents to the recycling machines.
"Following recognition and entrapment of the dying cell, the phagosome and the cell corpse are destined for a well-orchestrated destructive end. The phagosome fuses with lysosomes, which contain a large variety of proteases, nucleases and lipases that digest the phagosome cargo...The phagosome containing the cell corpse is targeted to lysosomes through a multistep maturation process, which begins immediately following the formation of the phagosome on dynamin-dependent membrane scission and is marked by multiple biochemical changes at the phagosomal membrane….
***
"Once the phagosome has fused with lysosomes and its cargo has been degraded, a resolution phase restores homeostasis within the phagocyte, allowing further phagocytosis. Since dying cells are not the only phagocytic cargo, the outcome of phagocytosis can vary dependent on what cargo is internalized. In the context of efferocytosis, some of the components of the cell corpse can be recaptured and recycled for use by the phagocytic cell following lysosomal degradation. Sugars, amino acids, lipids and nucleotides are recycled to replenish cellular stores and can potentially be used as building blocks and an energy source by the phagocytic cell.
***
"The authors describe some of the terrible things that happen when components fail. Among them are autoimmune diseases, necrosis (accumulation of dead cells), neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, blindness, inflammation, atherosclerosis, liver disease, diabetes, impaired wound healing, rheumatoid arthritis, infertility, and cancer. (my bold)
"Efferocytosis is governed by a plethora of factors, including unique membrane lipids and multiple effector proteins, which mediate functions such as dead cell recognition, the activation of phagocytosis and, ultimately, the degradation of the cell corpse. As discussed, the multistep process from cell death to cell clearance is delicate, with multiple points of redundancy"
Comment: My bold is God's recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.
Back to David's theory of evolution: planned cell death
by David Turell , Friday, July 17, 2020, 05:32 (1588 days ago) @ David Turell
Obviously programmed into the code of life:
https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/17_july_2020/MobilePagedReplica....
"Chromatin instability and mitochondrial decline are conserved processes that contribute to cellular aging. Although both processes have been explored individually in the context of their distinct signaling pathways, the mechanism that determines which process dominates during aging of individual cells is unknown. We show that interactions between the chromatin silencing and mitochondrial pathways lead to an epigenetic landscape of yeast replicative aging with multiple equilibrium states that represent different types of terminal states of aging. The structure of the landscape drives single-cell differentiation toward one of these states during aging, whereby the fate is determined quite early and is insensitive to intracellular noise. Guided by a quantitative model of the aging landscape, we genetically engineered a long-lived equilibrium state characterized by an extended life span.
***
"Many damage factors, including chromatin instability, mitochondrial dysfunction, and reactive oxygen species (Display footnote number, contribute to cellular aging. In each individual cell, how these factors combine to drive the aging process remains unclear. For instance, aging could be driven by independent damage mechanisms that accumulate at varying rates, resulting in different aged phenotypes in individual cells, or, alternatively, by the deterioration of overall cellular condition, leading to a common aging pathway in all cells. Single-cell analysis can reveal which scenario actually underlies the aging process. We investigated replicative aging of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a genetically tractable model for the aging of mitotic cell types such as stem cells (Display footnote number. Yeast aging research has focused on life span, as measured by the number of cell divisions before death
***
"Cellular aging can thus be considered a fatedecision process, in which single cells age toward either silencing loss and nucleolar decline or hemedepletion and mitochondrial decline. This process can be viewed as a divergent progression on a Sir2-HAP landscape, which can be reshaped by model-guided genetic perturbations, thereby enriching a long-lived mode of aging."
Comment: It is obvious cell death is planned by design, just whole organisms are planned for death. Part of God's design.
Back to David's theory of evolution: planned cell death
by David Turell , Friday, July 17, 2020, 14:31 (1588 days ago) @ David Turell
Another descriptive article of planned cell death:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6501/325
"Programmed aging in yeast cells
Following the fate of individual yeast cells has revealed aging to be more of a programmable decision process rather than a simple accumulation of deleterious events. Li et al. combined single-cell studies and mathematical modeling to show that yeast cells showed two different forms of aging: one with more ribosomal DNA silencing, in which nucleoli were degraded, and another with more heme accumulation and hemedependent transcription, in which mitochondria were more affected. Overexpression of the lysine deacetylase Sir2, which contributes to ribosomal DNA silencing, led to a third cell-aging fate in which the average life span was extended. If other cells age in similar ways, then this study may provide new ways to consider dynamics of aging and strategies to extend the health span.
"Abstract
Chromatin instability and mitochondrial decline are conserved processes that contribute to cellular aging. Although both processes have been explored individually in the context of their distinct signaling pathways, the mechanism that determines which process dominates during aging of individual cells is unknown. We show that interactions between the chromatin silencing and mitochondrial pathways lead to an epigenetic landscape of yeast replicative aging with multiple equilibrium states that represent different types of terminal states of aging. The structure of the landscape drives single-cell differentiation toward one of these states during aging, whereby the fate is determined quite early and is insensitive to intracellular noise. Guided by a quantitative model of the aging landscape, we genetically engineered a long-lived equilibrium state characterized by an extended life span."
Comment: Settles the issue that cells follow a death plan.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Unavoidable, was explained: molecular errors in high speed reactions. Older organisms have lots more errors. 'Aging' is built in purposely. All have to die.
dhw: The fact that old organisms suffer from more of the same "mistakes" than young organisms does not alter the fact that all the mistakes can cause death... Please tell us why you are so opposed to the theory that an all-powerful God deliberately created the “errors” in the system.
DAVID: You've avoided my direct statement of fact that ageing & death are both built into the system purposely. Old has to clear out for new. God built in ageing. Errors of rapidly reacting molecules are never His fault. The biological errors were expected by God, as shown by all the backup systems He designed into place.
I didn’t ignore it. You simply left out my comment: “Now you seem to be telling us that the only deliberately caused death is death by old age!” Meanwhile, you continue to insist that although your God built the system from scratch, he is not responsible for its errors, and you refuse to say why you are opposed to the theory that your all-powerful God might have created the “errors” deliberately because his plan was – as you put it – to clear out the old for the new.
DAVID: God does what He wants to do, and His inventions have limits. So? doesn't bother me.
dhw: I’m happy with that. It means that he wanted his inventions to have limits. It clearly does NOT mean that the limits were beyond his control. This at last would give some consistency to your claim that your God is all-powerful and always in control.
DAVID: Opposite interpretation, as usual. Repeated: Errors of rapidly reacting molecules are never His fault. The biological errors were expected by God, as shown by all the backup systems He designed into place. He tried to correct all errors and couldn't.
You continue to emphasize the powerlessness of God to control the system he invented. How very human!
Under “planned death”:
QUOTE: "The authors describe some of the terrible things that happen when components fail. Among them are autoimmune diseases, necrosis (accumulation of dead cells), neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, blindness, inflammation, atherosclerosis, liver disease, diabetes, impaired wound healing, rheumatoid arthritis, infertility, and cancer. (DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: My bold is God's recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.
Your bold introduces a list which includes umpteen “terrible things” that kill young and old indiscriminately. Death is “built into the system”, but according to you these causes of death are errors. And they are definitely not planned but are very carefully designed! Can you honestly not see how illogical this is?
DAVID: Your analysis of God's actions is faulty; God can be patient and not rush his creations.
dhw: We are not talking about God’s patience. We are talking about the claim that he only had one purpose – to specially design us (and our food supplies)– had the power to do so, but spent 3.X billion years specially designing other life forms (and their food supplies). You admit that you have no idea why he designed all those other extinct life forms (plus food supplies) instead of the only one (plus food supplies) he wanted to design, and so I am suggesting that YOUR analysis of your God’s actions is faulty.
DAVID: My analysis is based on Adler's argument, which you recognize is strong.
I have nothing against Adler’s argument (the exceptionalism of sapiens as evidence of God's existence) as you have relayed it to us. But you have told us that his argument does not extend to the rest of your theory.
DAVID: …and you rebuttal above refuses to accept the idea God can choose any method of creation He wants, something you always scurry back to when challenged with.
Of course your God can choose any method he wants! But that does not mean he chose YOUR method! Yet again, I have offered you alternatives which you accept as logical. Stop dodging!
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
DAVID: Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted. If you cannot do so, then please withdraw the accusation.
DAVID: God has chosen to evolve us, and you keep saying that is wrong. It is my theory.
If God exists, I have no problem with the theory that he has chosen to evolve us. My problem is your insistence that although you keep saying he is all-powerful and always in control (now qualified by his helplessness at the beginning of this post), and although his only purpose was to produce us, he spent 3.X billion years NOT producing us but instead directly designed (this is your idea of “evolving”) untold millions of now extinct non-human life forms, natural wonders etc. Please stop dodging, and please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, July 18, 2020, 00:08 (1588 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You've avoided my direct statement of fact that ageing & death are both built into the system purposely. Old has to clear out for new. God built in ageing. Errors of rapidly reacting molecules are never His fault. The biological errors were expected by God, as shown by all the backup systems He designed into place.
dhw: You simply left out my comment: “Now you seem to be telling us that the only deliberately caused death is death by old age!” Meanwhile, you continue to insist that although your God built the system from scratch, he is not responsible for its errors, and you refuse to say why you are opposed to the theory that your all-powerful God might have created the “errors” deliberately because his plan was – as you put it – to clear out the old for the new.
Of course the errors result from the system He created. I've answered the deliberate issue. His backups shows us He tried to stop them.
DAVID: God does what He wants to do, and His inventions have limits. So? doesn't bother me.dhw: I’m happy with that. It means that he wanted his inventions to have limits. It clearly does NOT mean that the limits were beyond his control. This at last would give some consistency to your claim that your God is all-powerful and always in control.
Total misinterpretation. See above. He tried to correct expected errors.
Under “planned death”:
QUOTE: "The authors describe some of the terrible things that happen when components fail. Among them are autoimmune diseases, necrosis (accumulation of dead cells), neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, blindness, inflammation, atherosclerosis, liver disease, diabetes, impaired wound healing, rheumatoid arthritis, infertility, and cancer. (DAVID’s bold)DAVID: My bold is God's recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.
dhw: Your bold introduces a list which includes umpteen “terrible things” that kill young and old indiscriminately. Death is “built into the system”, but according to you these causes of death are errors. And they are definitely not planned but are very carefully designed! Can you honestly not see how illogical this is?
Cell deaths and organism deaths are purposeful as my entries show.
DAVID: My analysis is based on Adler's argument, which you recognize is strong.dhw: I have nothing against Adler’s argument (the exceptionalism of sapiens as evidence of God's existence) as you have relayed it to us. But you have told us that his argument does not extend to the rest of your theory.
Adler quotes observations about our evolution
DAVID: …and you rebuttal above refuses to accept the idea God can choose any method of creation He wants, something you always scurry back to when challenged with.dhw: Of course your God can choose any method he wants! But that does not mean he chose YOUR method! Yet again, I have offered you alternatives which you accept as logical. Stop dodging!
Your substitute methods are all humanizing: experimenting, spectacles, late decision to try out inventing humans
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.DAVID: Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted. If you cannot do so, then please withdraw the accusation.out inventing humans
DAVID: Stop twisting my arguments to cover your illogicality.
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted. If you cannot do so, then please withdraw the accusation.
DAVID: God has chosen to evolve us, and you keep saying that is wrong. It is my theory.
dhw: If God exists, I have no problem with the theory that he has chosen to evolve us. My problem is your insistence that although you keep saying he is all-powerful and always in control (now qualified by his helplessness at the beginning of this post), and although his only purpose was to produce us, he spent 3.X billion years NOT producing us but instead directly designed (this is your idea of “evolving”) untold millions of now extinct non-human life forms, natural wonders etc. Please stop dodging, and please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
My choice of God's method argument is what you twist (last bold). Your first sentence agrees with His evolving us. So what is wrong with it taking all the time it took? Your continuous objection is totally illogical to me and will not change my position that God has the right to evolve us over the time it took.
Back to David's theory of evolution
Under: “Planned cell death”
DAVID: Settles the issue that cells follow a death plan.
DAVID: You've avoided my direct statement of fact that ageing & death are both built into the system purposely. Old has to clear out for new. God built in ageing. Errors of rapidly reacting molecules are never His fault. The biological errors were expected by God, as shown by all the backup systems He designed into place.
dhw: You simply left out my comment: “Now you seem to be telling us that the only deliberately caused death is death by old age!” Meanwhile, you continue to insist that although your God built the system from scratch, bbhe is not responsible for its errorsbbb, and you refuse to say why you are opposed to the theory that your all-powerful God might have created the “errors” deliberately because his plan was – as you put it – to clear out the old for the new.
DAVID: Of course the errors result from the system He created. I've answered the deliberate issue. His backups shows us He tried to stop them.
So he deliberately created death by old age and the death of the cells of which we are all made, but he did not deliberately create the various errors that result in any death other than these. He tried to stop all the unplanned deaths but couldn’t, although we are so smart that sometimes we can. Is that correct?
DAVID: God does what He wants to do, and His inventions have limits.
dhw: I’m happy with that. It means that he wanted his inventions to have limits. It clearly does NOT mean that the limits were beyond his control. […]
DAVID: Total misinterpretation. See above. He tried to correct expected errors.
So he didn’t want the errors, wanted to correct them, but was unable to do what he wanted to do, although he “does what He wants to do”.
QUOTE: "The authors describe some of the terrible things that happen when components fail.
DAVID: My bold is God's recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.
dhw: Your bold introduces a list which includes umpteen “terrible things” that kill young and old indiscriminately. Death is “built into the system”, but according to you these causes of death are errors. And they are definitely not intended or planned but are very carefully designed! Can you honestly not see how illogical this is?
DAVID: Cell deaths and organism deaths are purposeful as my entries show.
So how does that make the failures definitely not intended or planned but very carefully designed?
DAVID: My analysis is based on Adler's argument, which you recognize is strong.
dhw: I have nothing against Adler’s argument (the exceptionalism of sapiens as evidence of God's existence) as you have relayed it to us. But you have told us that his argument does not extend to the rest of your theory.
DAVID: Adler quotes observations about our evolution.
If he supports your theory as bolded below, then I would take issue with him, just as I take issue with you. Please stop hiding behind Adler and deal with the issue.
DAVID: …and you rebuttal above refuses to accept the idea God can choose any method of creation He wants, something you always scurry back to when challenged with.
dhw: Of course your God can choose any method he wants! But that does not mean he chose YOUR method! Yet again, I have offered you alternatives which you accept as logical. Stop dodging!
DAVID: Your substitute methods are all humanizing: experimenting, spectacles, late decision to try out inventing humans.
Answered in my next comment, which you ignore by claiming I twist your arguments.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: God has chosen to evolve us, and you keep saying that is wrong. It is my theory.
dhw: If God exists, I have no problem with the theory that he has chosen to evolve us. My problem is your insistence that although you keep saying he is all-powerful and always in control (now qualified by his helplessness at the beginning of this post), and although his only purpose was to produce us, he spent 3.X billion years NOT producing us but instead directly designed (this is your idea of “evolving”) untold millions of now extinct non-human life forms, natural wonders etc. Please stop dodging, and please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: My choice of God's method argument is what you twist (last bold). Your first sentence agrees with His evolving us. So what is wrong with it taking all the time it took?
What is wrong is not the time it took but your claim that although the only life forms he wanted to evolve were us and our food supplies, he chose to “evolve” (by which you mean directly design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. in order to feed humans who did not even exist.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Saturday, July 18, 2020, 22:14 (1587 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Of course the errors result from the system He created. I've answered the deliberate issue. His backups shows us He tried to stop them.
dhw: So he deliberately created death by old age and the death of the cells of which we are all made, but he did not deliberately create the various errors that result in any death other than these. He tried to stop all the unplanned deaths but couldn’t, although we are so smart that sometimes we can. Is that correct?
Exactly my interpretation of known facts.
QUOTE: "The authors describe some of the terrible things that happen when components fail.
DAVID: My bold is God's recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.
dhw: Your bold introduces a list which includes umpteen “terrible things” that kill young and old indiscriminately. Death is “built into the system”, but according to you these causes of death are errors. And they are definitely not intended or planned but are very carefully designed! Can you honestly not see how illogical this is?
DAVID: Cell deaths and organism deaths are purposeful as my entries show.
dhw: So how does that make the failures definitely not intended or planned but very carefully designed?
Failures of molecule function never designed. As shown by many backup correction mechanisms.
DAVID: …and you rebuttal above refuses to accept the idea God can choose any method of creation He wants, something you always scurry back to when challenged with.dhw: Of course your God can choose any method he wants! But that does not mean he chose YOUR method! Yet again, I have offered you alternatives which you accept as logical. Stop dodging!
DAVID: Your substitute methods are all humanizing: experimenting, spectacles, late decision to try out inventing humans.
dhw: Answered in my next comment, which you ignore by claiming I twist your arguments.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours, so please stop flogging it.
In use of logic only!! We do not know His reasons for his purposes. Still distorting!!
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.DAVID: God has chosen to evolve us, and you keep saying that is wrong. It is my theory.
dhw: If God exists, I have no problem with the theory that he has chosen to evolve us. My problem is your insistence that although you keep saying he is all-powerful and always in control (now qualified by his helplessness at the beginning of this post), and although his only purpose was to produce us, he spent 3.X billion years NOT producing us but instead directly designed (this is your idea of “evolving”) untold millions of now extinct non-human life forms, natural wonders etc. Please stop dodging, and please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: My choice of God's method argument is what you twist (last bold). Your first sentence agrees with His evolving us. So what is wrong with it taking all the time it took?
dhw: What is wrong is not the time it took but your claim that although the only life forms he wanted to evolve were us and our food supplies, he chose to “evolve” (by which you mean directly design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. in order to feed humans who did not even exist.
Again a gross distortion in bold. To produce us by evolving us, He knew and understood full well everything else had to come first. God can think realistically, but you don't seem to. We were a goal to be reached starting with bacteria, God's reasons for that method unknown, but you can guess at them as you always wish.
Back to David's theory of evolution; error protection
by David Turell , Saturday, July 18, 2020, 23:46 (1587 days ago) @ David Turell
Present to protect sperm germ cells:
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-sperm-discovery-reveals-clue-genetic.html
"New insights into an elusive process that protects developing sperm cells from damage in growing embryos, sheds light on how genetic information passes down, uninterrupted, through generations.
"The study identified a protein, known as SPOCD1, which plays a key role in protecting the early-stage precursors to sperm, known as germ cells, from damage in a developing embryo.
"During their development, germ cells undergo a reprogramming process that leaves them vulnerable to rogue genes, known as jumping genes, which can damage their DNA and lead to infertility.
"'Reprogramming is essential for correct germ cell development in embryos, but leaves them temporarily vulnerable to a subset their own genes, known as jumping genes, that threaten genetic chaos." explains lead author of the study, Professor Dónal O'Carroll at the University of Edinburgh.
"Evading such damage allows germ cells to become the pool of self-renewing cells that produce healthy sperm throughout adult life.
***
"The study is the first to reveal the role of the SPOCD1 protein, which helps to recruit protective chemical tags, known as DNA methylations, to disable jumping genes.
"Scientists have long puzzled over how germ cells escape damage during the reprogramming process, as it temporarily wipes their genetic slate clean of existing protective tags.
"The identification of SPOCD1 finally opens the doors to further investigation that will give a more elaborate understanding of this elusive process and male fertility." says O'Carroll.
***
"Jumping genes make up over half of our DNA and move around the genome controlling how our genes are used. But their activity needs to be carefully regulated to avoid them causing damage.
"The team discovered that early sperm's secret line of defence is activated when SPOCD1 binds with another protein, known as MIWI2, which is already known to have a role in silencing jumping genes.
"Previous studies revealed that MIWI2 protein is bound to small molecules, known as piRNAs, that play a key role in disabling jumping genes through DNA methylation.
"'Our results give the first mechanistic insights into a process that is fundamental to sperm cell development and their genetic integrity." says O'Carroll.
"The findings not only explain the missing part of the puzzle that allows developing sperm to escape an early death,"
Comment: More evidence of protections built into genetic processes. Mistakes are not intended by God. Obvious.
Back to David's theory of evolution: aging is built in
by David Turell , Sunday, July 19, 2020, 00:19 (1587 days ago) @ David Turell
Two mechanisms studied:
"Scientists have unraveled key mechanisms behind the mysteries of aging. They isolated two distinct paths that cells travel during aging and engineered a new way to genetically program these processes to extend lifespan. Cells embark upon either a nucleolar or mitochondrial path early in life, and follow this ''aging route'' throughout their entire lifespan through decline and death. At the heart of the controls the researchers found a master circuit that guides these aging processes.
"Our lifespans as humans are determined by the aging of our individual cells. To understand whether different cells age at the same rate and by the same cause, the researchers studied aging in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a tractable model for investigating mechanisms of aging, including the aging paths of skin and stem cells.
***
"they found that about half of the cells age through a gradual decline in the stability of the nucleolus, a region of nuclear DNA where key components of protein-producing "factories" are synthesized. In contrast, the other half age due to dysfunction of their mitochondria, the energy production units of cells.
"The scientists discovered that cells of the same genetic material and within the same environment can age in strikingly distinct ways, their fates unfolding through different molecular and cellular trajectories...The cells embark upon either the nucleolar or mitochondrial path early in life, and follow this "aging route" throughout their entire lifespan through decline and death. At the heart of the controls the researchers found a master circuit that guides these aging processes.
"'To understand how cells make these decisions, we identified the molecular processes underlying each aging route and the connections among them, revealing a molecular circuit that controls cell aging, analogous to electric circuits that control home appliances," said Nan Hao, senior author.."
Comment: Aging is a planned designed part of living. It has to be present to clear away room for coming generations. God plans well. Now certainly some deaths are mistakes, but tehv general intended path is from birth to death.
Back to David's theory of evolution
dhw: So he deliberately created death by old age and the death of the cells of which we are all made, but he did not deliberately create the various errors that result in any death other than these. He tried to stop all the unplanned deaths but couldn’t, although we are so smart that sometimes we can. Is that correct?
DAVID: Exactly my interpretation of known facts.
Well, it’s nice to hear that we humans are sometimes smarter than your God. I’ll keep in mind your God’s lack of control over his creations as useful support for my proposal that he may also have deliberately and generally allowed evolution to function without his control (apart from some possible dabbles).
QUOTE: "The authors describe some of the terrible things that happen when components fail.”
DAVID: My bold is God's recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.
dhw: […] according to you these causes of death are errors. And they are definitely not intended or planned but are very carefully designed! Can you honestly not see how illogical this is?
DAVID: Failures of molecule function never designed. As shown by many backup correction mechanisms.
So what were you referring to with your now bolded “very carefully designed”?
Under “Aging is built in”:
DAVID: Aging is a planned designed part of living. It has to be present to clear away room for coming generations. God plans well. Now certainly some deaths are mistakes, but the general intended path is from birth to death.
No one would dispute that ageing is part of the process from birth to death. But I don’t see how mistakes leading to millions of premature deaths constitute good planning.
DAVID: …and you rebuttal above refuses to accept the idea God can choose any method of creation He wants, something you always scurry back to when challenged with.
dhw: Of course your God can choose any method he wants! But that does not mean he chose YOUR method! Yet again, I have offered you alternatives which you accept as logical. Stop dodging!
DAVID: Your substitute methods are all humanizing: experimenting, spectacles, late decision to try out inventing humans.
dhw: Answered in my next comment, which you ignore by claiming I twist your arguments.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours...
DAVID: In use of logic only!! We do not know His reasons for his purposes. Still distorting!!
Purposes ARE reasons! And I’m sorry, but your original statement was “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought” (David’s theory of evolution Part Two, Friday 31 January). I kept the reference because (a) it is central to our discussion, and (b) it has always seemed to me a perfectly reasonable assumption. If your God created our faculties for thought and feeling, why would they be totally unlike his own? There is no distortion, and in any case my logical alternative theories are fully in keeping with your claim that his logic is similar to ours. It is only your theory that fails to find any similarity!
dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: God has chosen to evolve us, and you keep saying that is wrong. It is my theory.
dhw: If God exists, I have no problem with the theory that he has chosen to evolve us. My problem is your insistence that although you keep saying he is all-powerful and always in control (now qualified by his helplessness at the beginning of this post), and although his only purpose was to produce us, he spent 3.X billion years NOT producing us but instead directly designed (this is your idea of “evolving”) untold millions of now extinct non-human life forms, natural wonders etc. Please stop dodging, and please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: My choice of God's method argument is what you twist (last bold). Your first sentence agrees with His evolving us. So what is wrong with it taking all the time it took?
dhw: What is wrong is not the time it took but your claim that although the only life forms he wanted to evolve were us and our food supplies, he chose to “evolve” (by which you mean directly design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. in order to feed humans who did not even exist.
DAVID: Again a gross distortion in bold. To produce us by evolving us, He knew and understood full well everything else had to come first. God can think realistically, but you don't seem to. We were a goal to be reached starting with bacteria, God's reasons for that method unknown, but you can guess at them as you always wish.
Why did “everything else” HAVE to come first? Your answer: “reason unknown”! I have offered you alternative, logical reasons why everything DID come first. Only your explanation defies logic, so maybe it’s wrong! And what you have pointed out is not a distortion, since yet again you insist that “we were a goal to be reached”. (You’ve once more changed “the” goal to “a” goal, though you’ve never named any other goal.)
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Sunday, July 19, 2020, 20:41 (1586 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Failures of molecule function never designed. As shown by many backup correction mechanisms.
dhw: So what were you referring to with your now bolded “very carefully designed”?
Obviously the backup systems.
Under “Aging is built in”:
DAVID: Aging is a planned designed part of living. It has to be present to clear away room for coming generations. God plans well. Now certainly some deaths are mistakes, but the general intended path is from birth to death.dhw: No one would dispute that ageing is part of the process from birth to death. But I don’t see how mistakes leading to millions of premature deaths constitute good planning.
Totally unreasonable. God cannot prevent molecular mistakes
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours...DAVID: In use of logic only!! We do not know His reasons for his purposes. Still distorting!!
dhw: Purposes ARE reasons!
Not logical. There are always reasons behind purposes!! Not according to two thesaurus' I reviewed. There is conceptual thoughts that lead to purpose. I covered reason. motive and purpose, but even motive implies thought beforehand.
dhw: If God exists, I have no problem with the theory that he has chosen to evolve us. My problem is your insistence that although you keep saying he is all-powerful and always in control (now qualified by his helplessness at the beginning of this post), and although his only purpose was to produce us, he spent 3.X billion years NOT producing us but instead directly designed (this is your idea of “evolving”) untold millions of now extinct non-human life forms, natural wonders etc. Please stop dodging, and please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.
DAVID: My choice of God's method argument is what you twist (last bold). Your first sentence agrees with His evolving us. So what is wrong with it taking all the time it took?
dhw: What is wrong is not the time it took but your claim that although the only life forms he wanted to evolve were us and our food supplies, he chose to “evolve” (by which you mean directly design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. in order to feed humans who did not even exist.
DAVID: Again a gross distortion in bold. To produce us by evolving us, He knew and understood full well everything else had to come first. God can think realistically, but you don't seem to. We were a goal to be reached starting with bacteria, God's reasons for that method unknown, but you can guess at them as you always wish.
dhw: Why did “everything else” HAVE to come first? Your answer: “reason unknown”! I have offered you alternative, logical reasons why everything DID come first. Only your explanation defies logic, so maybe it’s wrong! And what you have pointed out is not a distortion, since yet again you insist that “we were a goal to be reached”. (You’ve once more changed “the” goal to “a” goal, though you’ve never named any other goal.)
Having a prime goal is not a mistaken view of God. From the Big Bang on, I view it as easy to see God's purposive actions. That is my position, whether it is 'a' or 'prime'.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: Failures of molecule function never designed. As shown by many backup correction mechanisms.
dhw: So what were you referring to with your now bolded “very carefully designed”?
DAVID: Obviously the backup systems.
But you wrote: “My bold is God’s recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.” This can only refer to the failures, so perhaps you will understand why your logic is sometimes so hard to follow.
Under “Aging is built in”:
DAVID: Aging is a planned designed part of living. It has to be present to clear away room for coming generations. God plans well. Now certainly some deaths are mistakes, but the general intended path is from birth to death.
dhw: No one would dispute that ageing is part of the process from birth to death. But I don’t see how mistakes leading to millions of premature deaths constitute good planning.
DAVID: Totally unreasonable. God cannot prevent molecular mistakes
You offer us an all-powerful God with a helpless inability to control his own invention, although amazingly we smart human beings are able to correct some of the mistakes he could not avoid. And once again, I don’t see how millions of mistaken premature deaths from the same diseases that kill old people can be called good planning.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours...
DAVID: In use of logic only!! We do not know His reasons for his purposes. Still distorting!!
At this point I quoted your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours and “beyond just simple logical thought”. I can understand your reluctance to continue the discussion on “humanizing”, and to switch to wordplay. Perhaps you will also understand that I should not be accused of distortion when I quote your own words.
dhw: Purposes ARE reasons!
DAVID: Not logical. There are always reasons behind purposes!! Not according to two thesaurus' I reviewed. There is conceptual thoughts that lead to purpose. I covered reason. motive and purpose, but even motive implies thought beforehand.
You claim that your God’s only reason or purpose for creating life was to create H. sapiens, and his reason or purpose for spending 3.X billion years creating millions of non-human life forms etc. was to provide food for humans who did not yet exist. Dictionary definitions: “Purpose: the reason for which anything is done, created or exists” (Encarta) “The purpose of something is the reason for which it is made or done” (Collins) Please stop playing with words and deal with the issues themselves.
DAVID: […] what is wrong with it taking all the time it took?
dhw: What is wrong is not the time it took but your claim that although the only life forms he wanted to evolve were us and our food supplies, he chose to “evolve” (by which you mean directly design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. in order to feed humans who did not even exist.
DAVID: Again a gross distortion in bold. To produce us by evolving us, He knew and understood full well everything else had to come first. God can think realistically, but you don't seem to. We were a goal to be reached starting with bacteria, God's reasons for that method unknown […]
dhw: Why did “everything else” HAVE to come first? Your answer: “reason unknown”! I have offered you alternative, logical reasons why everything DID come first. Only your explanation defies logic, so maybe it’s wrong! And what you have pointed out is not a distortion, since yet again you insist that “we were a goal to be reached”. (You’ve once more changed “the” goal to “a” goal, though you’ve never named any other goal.)
DAVID: Having a prime goal is not a mistaken view of God. From the Big Bang on, I view it as easy to see God's purposive actions. That is my position, whether it is 'a' or 'prime'.
I did not say that God did not have a prime goal, and the distinction is not between ‘a’ and ‘prime’ but between ‘a’ and ‘the’. You play similar games on the other thread with “the prime endpoint”. This whole dispute concerns the question why, if his only purpose was to create H. sapiens, he spent 3.X billion years directly designing anything but H. sapiens in order to provide food for humans who only appeared after 99% of the other life forms and food supplies had disappeared. You have several times said that you have “no idea”. That is an agreement that you find your own theory illogical. However, if your God had other goals or secondary purposes, we might be able to find a more logical explanation of evolution, so please tell us what you think the other or secondary purposes might have been.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Monday, July 20, 2020, 17:12 (1585 days ago) @ dhw
Under “Aging is built in”:
DAVID: Totally unreasonable. God cannot prevent molecular mistakes
dhw: You offer us an all-powerful God with a helpless inability to control his own invention, although amazingly we smart human beings are able to correct some of the mistakes he could not avoid. And once again, I don’t see how millions of mistaken premature deaths from the same diseases that kill old people can be called good planning.
He invented living organisms, but cannot stop molecular mistakes. Accept it.
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours...DAVID: In use of logic only!! We do not know His reasons for his purposes. Still distorting!!
dhw: At this point I quoted your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours and “beyond just simple logical thought”. I can understand your reluctance to continue the discussion on “humanizing”, and to switch to wordplay. Perhaps you will also understand that I should not be accused of distortion when I quote your own words.
That still doesn't tell us His reasoning behind His purposes.
dhw: Purposes ARE reasons!DAVID: Not logical. There are always reasons behind purposes!! Not according to two thesaurus' I reviewed. There is conceptual thoughts that lead to purpose. I covered reason. motive and purpose, but even motive implies thought beforehand.
dhw: You claim that your God’s only reason or purpose for creating life was to create H. sapiens, and his reason or purpose for spending 3.X billion years creating millions of non-human life forms etc. was to provide food for humans who did not yet exist. Dictionary definitions: “Purpose: the reason for which anything is done, created or exists” (Encarta) “The purpose of something is the reason for which it is made or done” (Collins) Please stop playing with words and deal with the issues themselves.
To arrive at purpose one must think through all the reasons for choosing that purpose. you are trying to skip a mental step in wordplay of your own
DAVID: Having a prime goal is not a mistaken view of God. From the Big Bang on, I view it as easy to see God's purposive actions. That is my position, whether it is 'a' or 'prime'.dhw: I did not say that God did not have a prime goal, and the distinction is not between ‘a’ and ‘prime’ but between ‘a’ and ‘the’. You play similar games on the other thread with “the prime endpoint”. This whole dispute concerns the question why, if his only purpose was to create H. sapiens, he spent 3.X billion years directly designing anything but H. sapiens in order to provide food for humans who only appeared after 99% of the other life forms and food supplies had disappeared. You have several times said that you have “no idea”. That is an agreement that you find your own theory illogical.
The bold is total distortion of my prior statements that I don't try to guess at His reasons, and I use history to tell what He did, since I view Him as in charge.
dhw: However, if your God had other goals or secondary purposes, we might be able to find a more logical explanation of evolution, so please tell us what you think the other or secondary purposes might have been.
All I can do is look at history and the extraordinary result of conscious humans. I'll ask you, are there other purposes? I don't know of any serious ones.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: God cannot prevent molecular mistakes
dhw: You offer us an all-powerful God with a helpless inability to control his own invention, although amazingly we smart human beings are able to correct some of the mistakes he could not avoid. And once again, I don’t see how millions of mistaken premature deaths from the same diseases that kill old people can be called good planning.
DAVID: He invented living organisms, but cannot stop molecular mistakes. Accept it.
As usual, I will put on my theist hat for the sake of this discussion. Why should I accept your theory that your at times all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God is so incompetent that he invents a system which includes mistakes he can’t control, whereas we humans are smart enough to correct some of them! And why should I accept that millions of mistaken deaths are a sign of good planning? (NB This is not a criticism of God, but of your interpretation of God’s powers and wishes.)
dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours...
DAVID: In use of logic only!! We do not know His reasons for his purposes. Still distorting!!
dhw: At this point I quoted your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours and “beyond just simple logical thought”. I can understand your reluctance to continue the discussion on “humanizing”, and to switch to wordplay. Perhaps you will also understand that I should not be accused of distortion when I quote your own words.
DAVID: That still doesn't tell us His reasoning behind His purposes.
And:
DAVID: To arrive at purpose one must think through all the reasons for choosing that purpose. you are trying to skip a mental step in wordplay of your own.
So you offer us a theory: Your God’s purpose was to design H. sapiens (God hasn’t told us the reason why), and his purpose for designing all the extinct non-human life forms, econiches etc. was to feed H. sapiens, who had not yet arrived (God hasn’t told us the reason and you have no idea why he thought he needed to feed all the extinct non-human forms before he directly designed H. sapiens). You dismiss other theories which give logical reasons for the whole history, including all the non-human forms and econiches, because they humanize your God, although you agree that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours but apparently this is a distortion of your statement that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours.
dhw: You have several times said that you have “no idea”. That is an agreement that you find your own theory illogical. (David’s bold)
DAVID: The bold is total distortion of my prior statements that I don't try to guess at His reasons, and I use history to tell what He did, since I view Him as in charge.
If God exists, then of course the history tells us what he did. But history does not tell us the purposes you attribute to him, and you have told us that you have no idea why he would have chosen to “evolve” H. sapiens (= specially design in your vocabulary) by first evolving (= specially designing) billions of now extinct non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc.
dhw: However, if your God had other goals or secondary purposes, we might be able to find a more logical explanation of evolution, so please tell us what you think the other or secondary purposes might have been.
DAVID: All I can do is look at history and the extraordinary result of conscious humans. I'll ask you, are there other purposes? I don't know of any serious ones.
If you can’t think of any other purposes, then please stop pretending that I distort your opinions, and please stop substituting “a” purpose or a “prime purpose” or “endpoint” for THE purpose. How do you define “serious” ones? I have offered you several logical explanations of the history: experimenting, getting new ideas as history progresses, designing for his own enjoyment, designing to relieve the boredom of eternal isolation – all of these in keeping with your own extremely serious observation that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 21, 2020, 18:17 (1584 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: He invented living organisms, but cannot stop molecular mistakes. Accept it.
dhw: As usual, I will put on my theist hat for the sake of this discussion. Why should I accept your theory that your at times all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God is so incompetent that he invents a system which includes mistakes he can’t control, whereas we humans are smart enough to correct some of them! And why should I accept that millions of mistaken deaths are a sign of good planning? (NB This is not a criticism of God, but of your interpretation of God’s powers and wishes.)
Off the point of my explanation as usual. We do not know of any other system He could invent. We know it must be carbon based, and the reactions occur at very high split-second speed. It relies on proteins which must fold precisely to produce their functionality. This allows for the definite probability of molecular error, and we see the backup systems builtin for corrections. They tell us God foresaw the problems. As for correction of biological errors, God gave us the complexity of brain to solve what we can solve. Your problem not mine. Your theistic hat is wildly askew as usual. I wish I could clarify your knowledge of biochemistry, as you obviously don't comprehend my point of view.
DAVID: That still doesn't tell us His reasoning behind His purposes.
And:
DAVID: To arrive at purpose one must think through all the reasons for choosing that purpose. you are trying to skip a mental step in wordplay of your own.dhw: Your God’s purpose was to design H. sapiens (God hasn’t told us the reason why), and his purpose for designing all the extinct non-human life forms, econiches etc. was to feed H. sapiens, who had not yet arrived (God hasn’t told us the reason and you have no idea why he thought he needed to feed all the extinct non-human forms before he directly designed H. sapiens).
Ridiculous comment. Feeding everyone during evolution is an obvious necessity. And obviously God has never told anyone (skipping Bible stories) His reasons for doing any of the things He has done. We can only base it on His works.
dhw: You dismiss other theories... because they humanize your God, although you agree that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours but apparently this is a distortion of your statement that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours.
There can be only one definite theory only about God's thoughts: He uses logic as we do. The rest is guesswork.
dhw: If God exists, then of course the history tells us what he did. But history does not tell us the purposes you attribute to him, and you have told us that you have no idea why he would have chosen to “evolve” H. sapiens (= specially design in your vocabulary) by first evolving (= specially designing) billions of now extinct non-human life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc.
The results clearly indicate purpose: Adler's point that our unusual appearance with our consciousness attribute clearly indicates God's purpose. Enough proof for me.
dhw: However, if your God had other goals or secondary purposes, we might be able to find a more logical explanation of evolution, so please tell us what you think the other or secondary purposes might have been.DAVID: All I can do is look at history and the extraordinary result of conscious humans. I'll ask you, are there other purposes? I don't know of any serious ones.
dhw: If you can’t think of any other purposes, then please stop pretending that I distort your opinions, and please stop substituting “a” purpose or a “prime purpose” or “endpoint” for THE purpose. How do you define “serious” ones? I have offered you several logical explanations of the history: experimenting, getting new ideas as history progresses, designing for his own enjoyment, designing to relieve the boredom of eternal isolation – all of these in keeping with your own extremely serious observation that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours.
The usual humanized version of how God thinks and develops purpose. And it ends with the usual distortion of my view of God's thoughts. All any of us can know is He is as logical as we are. His reasons behind His purposes are his thoughts alone.
Back to David's theory of evolution
DAVID: He invented living organisms, but cannot stop molecular mistakes. Accept it.
dhw: As usual, I will put on my theist hat for the sake of this discussion. Why should I accept your theory that your at times all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God is so incompetent that he invents a system which includes mistakes he can’t control, whereas we humans are smart enough to correct some of them! And why should I accept that millions of mistaken deaths are a sign of good planning? (NB This is not a criticism of God, but of your interpretation of God’s powers and wishes.)
DAVID: Off the point of my explanation as usual. We do not know of any other system He could invent. We know it must be carbon based, and the reactions occur at very high split-second speed. It relies on proteins which must fold precisely to produce their functionality. This allows for the definite probability of molecular error, and we see the backup systems builtin for corrections. They tell us God foresaw the problems. As for correction of biological errors, God gave us the complexity of brain to solve what we can solve. Your problem not mine. Your theistic hat is wildly askew as usual. I wish I could clarify your knowledge of biochemistry, as you obviously don't comprehend my point of view.
I’m sorry, but all you are doing is explaining why things go wrong. I am not disputing the biochemistry but your interpretation of your God’s powers and intentions. Of course we don’t know of any other system, and of course the system we know is full of errors, and of course the errors can sometimes be corrected and sometimes can’t be corrected. But I suggest that if your God is all-powerful, he will do what he wants to do. You say he deliberately created the errors that lead to old people dying, but the errors that kill young people are not his fault (i.e. he didn’t want them). With my theist's hat on, I suggest that maybe he deliberately created all the errors, i.e. he wanted them (since death was essential to whatever might have been his purpose). The biochemistry is the same for each theory. And I find it absurd to argue that your all-powerful God could not correct some errors, but gave us the intelligence to do what he couldn’t do.
DAVID: That still doesn't tell us His reasoning behind His purposes.
dhw: Your God’s purpose was to design H. sapiens (God hasn’t told us the reason why), and his purpose for designing all the extinct non-human life forms, econiches etc. was to feed H. sapiens, who had not yet arrived (God hasn’t told us the reason and you have no idea why he thought he needed to feed all the extinct non-human forms before he directly designed H. sapiens).
DAVID: Ridiculous comment. Feeding everyone during evolution is an obvious necessity.
Designing and feeding millions of now extinct non-human life forms is not an obvious necessity if his only intention was to design and feed humans! Stop dodging!
dhw: You dismiss other theories... because they humanize your God, although you agree that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours but apparently this is a distortion of your statement that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours.
DAVID: There can be only one definite theory only about God's thoughts: He uses logic as we do. The rest is guesswork.
What is a “definite” theory? If he uses logic as we do, we should be able to understand it. Not even you can understand the logic of the bold above, whereas you do recognize the logic of my alternatives.
dhw: However, if your God had other goals or secondary purposes, we might be able to find a more logical explanation of evolution, so please tell us what you think the other or secondary purposes might have been.
DAVID: All I can do is look at history and the extraordinary result of conscious humans. I'll ask you, are there other purposes? I don't know of any serious ones.
dhw: If you can’t think of any other purposes, then please stop pretending that I distort your opinions, and please stop substituting “a” purpose or a “prime purpose” or “endpoint” for THE purpose. How do you define “serious” ones? I have offered you several logical explanations of the history: experimenting, getting new ideas as history progresses, designing for his own enjoyment, designing to relieve the boredom of eternal isolation – all of these in keeping with your own extremely serious observation that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours.
DAVID: The usual humanized version of how God thinks and develops purpose.
Fits in perfectly with your contention that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours, “beyond just simple logical thought”.
DAVID: And it ends with the usual distortion of my view of God's thoughts.
Not a distortion but a direct quote, and a perfectly reasonable theory. When pressed for a possible explanation of your God’s purpose for creating H. sapiens, you even acknowledge that your God might want a relationship with us, might want us to admire his works, and might enjoy his own works as a painter enjoys his paintings.
Back to David's theory of evolution
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 22, 2020, 15:33 (1583 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: But I suggest that if your God is all-powerful, he will do what he wants to do. You say he deliberately created the errors that lead to old people dying, but the errors that kill young people are not his fault (i.e. he didn’t want them).
Confused. The bold does not correctly recognize that the mechanism of aging leading to death is purposely builtin and may or may not be due to error
dhw; With my theist's hat on, I suggest that maybe he deliberately created all the errors, i.e. he wanted them (since death was essential to whatever might have been his purpose). The biochemistry is the same for each theory. And I find it absurd to argue that your all-powerful God could not correct some errors, but gave us the intelligence to do what he couldn’t do.
The errors you want God to correct are all unexpected accidents of molecular activity which God could never control unless He somehow created a fail-safe system. That it isn't fail-safe proves it is impossible to create.
DAVID: That still doesn't tell us His reasoning behind His purposes.dhw: Your God’s purpose was to design H. sapiens (God hasn’t told us the reason why), and his purpose for designing all the extinct non-human life forms, econiches etc. was to feed H. sapiens, who had not yet arrived (God hasn’t told us the reason and you have no idea why he thought he needed to feed all the extinct non-human forms before he directly designed H. sapiens).
DAVID: Ridiculous comment. Feeding everyone during evolution is an obvious necessity.
dhw: Designing and feeding millions of now extinct non-human life forms is not an obvious necessity if his only intention was to design and feed humans! Stop dodging!
No dodge. Your confusion. God has the right to evolve us and feed all organisms along the way.
DAVID: There can be only one definite theory only about God's thoughts: He uses logic as we do. The rest is guesswork.dhw: What is a “definite” theory? If he uses logic as we do, we should be able to understand it. Not even you can understand the logic of the bold above, whereas you do recognize the logic of my alternatives.
It is not an issue of understanding God's logic. We obviously cannot know His reasoning behind his choices of purpose or method of achieving them.
dhw: However, if your God had other goals or secondary purposes, we might be able to find a more logical explanation of evolution, so please tell us what you think the other or secondary purposes might have been.DAVID: All I can do is look at history and the extraordinary result of conscious humans. I'll ask you, are there other purposes? I don't know of any serious ones.
dhw: If you can’t think of any other purposes, then please stop pretending that I distort your opinions, and please stop substituting “a” purpose or a “prime purpose” or “endpoint” for THE purpose. How do you define “serious” ones? I have offered you several logical explanations of the history: experimenting, getting new ideas as history progresses, designing for his own enjoyment, designing to relieve the boredom of eternal isolation – all of these in keeping with your own extremely serious observation that he probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours.
DAVID: The usual humanized version of how God thinks and develops purpose.
Fits in perfectly with your contention that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours, “beyond just simple logical thought”.
DAVID: And it ends with the usual distortion of my view of God's thoughts.
dhw: Not a distortion but a direct quote, and a perfectly reasonable theory. When pressed for a possible explanation of your God’s purpose for creating H. sapiens, you even acknowledge that your God might want a relationship with us, might want us to admire his works, and might enjoy his own works as a painter enjoys his paintings.
Exactly my thoughts as pure guesswork, when responding to your request to come up with possible reasons. Guesswork is not substantive thought, and I've stated those guesses were at the level of humanizing.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Thursday, July 23, 2020, 00:50 (1583 days ago) @ David Turell
From my view they are really molecular mistakes, and guess what, this article describes a series of corrective measures that are present and designed to correct:
https://evolutionnews.org/2020/07/in-cells-and-whole-organisms-repair-mechanisms-imply-...
"...scientists found at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. “Sometimes, when something is broken, the first step to fixing it is to break it even more.”
“'We saw that XPG makes a beeline for discontinuous DNA — places where the hydrogen bonds between bases on each strand of the helix have been disrupted — and then it very dramatically bends the strand at that exact location, breaking the interface that connects bases stacked on top of each other,” said Susan Tsutakawa,"...The bending activity adds to an already impressive arsenal, as XPG was first identified as a DNA chopping enzyme, responsible for cutting out nucleotide bases with chemical and UV radiation damage.”
“'An unexpected finding from our imaging data is that the flexible parts of the protein — which were previously impossible to examine – have the ability to recognize perturbations associated with many different types of DNA damage,” said co-author Priscilla Cooper, “XPG then uses its sculpting properties to bend the DNA in order to recruit and load into place the proteins that can fix that type of damage.”
Handling brain cell death: "Cell death is prevalent throughout life; however, the coordinated interactions and roles of phagocytes during corpse removal in the live brain are poorly understood. Astrocytes and microglia engaged with dying neurons in an orchestrated and synchronized fashion. Each glial cell played specialized roles: Astrocyte processes rapidly polarized and engulfed numerous small dendritic apoptotic bodies, while microglia migrated and engulfed the soma and apical dendrites. The relative involvement and phagocytic specialization of each glial cell was plastic and controlled by the receptor tyrosine kinase Mertk… Thus, a precisely orchestrated response and cross-talk between glial cells during corpse removal may be critical for maintaining brain homeostasis.
"In early embryological development mistakes can happen: Scientists at Caltech point out:
"The first few days of embryonic development are a critical point for determining the failure or success of a pregnancy. Because relatively few cells make up the embryo during this period, the health of each cell is vital to the health of the overall embryo. But often, these young cells have chromosomal aneuploidies — meaning, there are too many or too few chromosome copies in the cell. Aneuploid cells lead to the failure of the pregnancy, or cause developmental defects such as Down syndrome later in gestation.
"Fortunately, these young embryos perform their own “quality control” before most genetic abnormalities become established:
"Researchers have found that the prevalence of aneuploidy is drastically lower as the embryo grows and develops. Using mouse embryos, scientists from the laboratory of Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, Caltech’s Bren Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering, now show that this is because embryos are able to rid themselves of abnormal cells just before and soon after implantation into the uterus, thereby keeping the whole embryo healthy….
“'It is remarkable that embryos can do this,” says Zernicka-Goetz. “It reflects their plasticity that gives them the power to self-repair.”
"The scientists found a double-protection mechanism. Not only are aneuploid cells detected and eliminated, but healthy cells are stimulated to proliferate, compensating for the loss of unhealthy cells. "
Comment: Recognizing that these mistakes, errors, and damage can occur in any functional living creature, requires the foresight to create these corrective mechanisms in advance. There are no God errors, only His corrective mechanisms by carefully instructed cells to conduct error correction and repairs.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
QUOTES: “..embryos are able to rid themselves of abnormal cells just before and soon after implantation into the uterus, thereby keeping the whole embryo healthy…."
“'It is remarkable that embryos can do this,” says Zernicka-Goetz. “It reflects their plasticity that gives them the power to self-repair.”
"The scientists found a double-protection mechanism. Not only are aneuploid cells detected and eliminated, but healthy cells are stimulated to proliferate, compensating for the loss of unhealthy cells. "
DAVID: Recognizing that these mistakes, errors, and damage can occur in any functional living creature, requires the foresight to create these corrective mechanisms in advance. There are no God errors, only His corrective mechanisms by carefully instructed cells to conduct error correction and repairs.
An alternative interpretation would be that over the billions of years, intelligent cells have cooperated in correcting errors as and when they appear – using the perhaps God-given “plasticity that gives them the power to self-repair”. It is clearly absurd to argue that God could not control or correct the errors in the system he created, but then he gave cells instructions on how to control or correct the errors he could not control or correct when he created the system!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Thursday, July 23, 2020, 15:43 (1582 days ago) @ dhw
QUOTES: “..embryos are able to rid themselves of abnormal cells just before and soon after implantation into the uterus, thereby keeping the whole embryo healthy…."
“'It is remarkable that embryos can do this,” says Zernicka-Goetz. “It reflects their plasticity that gives them the power to self-repair.”
"The scientists found a double-protection mechanism. Not only are aneuploid cells detected and eliminated, but healthy cells are stimulated to proliferate, compensating for the loss of unhealthy cells. "
DAVID: Recognizing that these mistakes, errors, and damage can occur in any functional living creature, requires the foresight to create these corrective mechanisms in advance. There are no God errors, only His corrective mechanisms by carefully instructed cells to conduct error correction and repairs.
dhw: An alternative interpretation would be that over the billions of years, intelligent cells have cooperated in correcting errors as and when they appear – using the perhaps God-given “plasticity that gives them the power to self-repair”. It is clearly absurd to argue that God could not control or correct the errors in the system he created, but then he gave cells instructions on how to control or correct the errors he could not control or correct when he created the system!
"Clearly absurd" shows a total misunderstanding of the problem. Living biochemistry is an amazing development, whose origin is not understood. To repeat once again: the molecular reactions are at split-second speed, generally relying on function from specialized folding of organic molecules. Contrary to dhw's opinion it is amazing it works as well as it does. Ask any biochemist.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
dhw: It is clearly absurd to argue that God could not control or correct the errors in the system he created, but then he gave cells instructions on how to control or correct the errors he could not control or correct when he created the system!
DAVID: "Clearly absurd" shows a total misunderstanding of the problem. Living biochemistry is an amazing development, whose origin is not understood. To repeat once again: the molecular reactions are at split-second speed, generally relying on function from specialized folding of organic molecules. Contrary to dhw's opinion it is amazing it works as well as it does. Ask any biochemist.
This must be the most “non sequitur” response you have come up with so far. Living biochemistry is so amazing that it is the best possible argument for design, as I have repeated over and over again. Now please explain the logic behind your belief that your God could not control the errors in the system and therefore gave cells instructions on how to control the errors in the system.
Thank you for all the articles on complexities and errors. I’ll reproduce your comments, as they are clearly related to the above.
Comment: as usual a complex, highly controlled system, obviously designed. The better we understand it, the better we can correct errors.
Comment: Another very complex mechanism to transport molecular product. Note my bold. All biochemists know mistakes happen. None of life's processes are fail-safe despite many safeguard systems in place.
Comment: A highly complex system not produced by chance. And again this may help us correct things that will go wrong.
We all know that things go wrong! Your solution to the problem of “errors” by your God - which we might call a branch of theodicy - is to present him as having invented a system which he could not control (so somehow this means the errors were not his fault), but he provided us with safeguards as well as the intelligence to correct some of the errors which he himself could not correct. The safeguards can only mean he did know how to correct some of the errors he did not know how to correct, and our intelligence must be greater than his if we can correct errors he couldn’t correct. I find this illogical, as well as running contrary to your often repeated belief that your God is all-powerful and always in control. We should also remember that all these errors accumulated over thousands of millions of years of evolution (unless bacteria suffered from all the diseases now known to humankind!) and so the question must arise as to how and when these “safeguards” were actually installed? How could he have directly dabbled or provided the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year programme to correct errors he could not correct?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Friday, July 24, 2020, 19:28 (1581 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: "Clearly absurd" shows a total misunderstanding of the problem. Living biochemistry is an amazing development, whose origin is not understood. To repeat once again: the molecular reactions are at split-second speed, generally relying on function from specialized folding of organic molecules. Contrary to dhw's opinion it is amazing it works as well as it does. Ask any biochemist.
dhw: This must be the most “non sequitur” response you have come up with so far. Living biochemistry is so amazing that it is the best possible argument for design, as I have repeated over and over again. Now please explain the logic behind your belief that your God could not control the errors in the system and therefore gave cells instructions on how to control the errors in the system.
The bold did happen, remember!!! There are all sorts of backup systems at work, which show God recognized the problem as you note. But they, like the systems they try to monitor and correct, are also prone to molecular error. That is the nature of the beast. It is not God's fault, and I would say impossible to control by a better, more proficient, God.
Thank you for all the articles on complexities and errors. I’ll reproduce your comments, as they are clearly related to the above.Comment: as usual a complex, highly controlled system, obviously designed. The better we understand it, the better we can correct errors.
Comment: Another very complex mechanism to transport molecular product. Note my bold. All biochemists know mistakes happen. None of life's processes are fail-safe despite many safeguard systems in place.
Comment: A highly complex system not produced by chance. And again this may help us correct things that will go wrong.
dhw: We all know that things go wrong! Your solution to the problem of “errors” by your God - which we might call a branch of theodicy - is to present him as having invented a system which he could not control (so somehow this means the errors were not his fault), but he provided us with safeguards as well as the intelligence to correct some of the errors which he himself could not correct. The safeguards can only mean he did know how to correct some of the errors he did not know how to correct, and our intelligence must be greater than his if we can correct errors he couldn’t correct. I find this illogical, as well as running contrary to your often repeated belief that your God is all-powerful and always in control. We should also remember that all these errors accumulated over thousands of millions of years of evolution (unless bacteria suffered from all the diseases now known to humankind!) and so the question must arise as to how and when these “safeguards” were actually installed? How could he have directly dabbled or provided the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year programme to correct errors he could not correct?
Good questions. Note the bold! If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault. I don't know when He recognized the problem during evolution, but I would guess quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. Our knowledge is not greater than His. Note your red colored comment. We have figured out how some of His system works and can tailor it by using CRISPR made by His bacteria. We have to use His life inventions to do anything, so He is obviously superior. Note the blue comment: He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as He could. It all bothers you more than me; surprising as I believe in him, and you don't. So it is your problem, not mine.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
DAVID: "Clearly absurd" shows a total misunderstanding of the problem. Living biochemistry is an amazing development, whose origin is not understood. To repeat once again: the molecular reactions are at split-second speed, generally relying on function from specialized folding of organic molecules. Contrary to dhw's opinion it is amazing it works as well as it does. Ask any biochemist.
dhw: This must be the most “non sequitur” response you have come up with so far. Living biochemistry is so amazing that it is the best possible argument for design, as I have repeated over and over again. Now please explain the logic behind your belief that your God could not control the errors in the system and therefore gave cells instructions on how to control the errors in the system.
DAVID: The bold did happen, remember!!! There are all sorts of backup systems at work, which show God recognized the problem as you note. But they, like the systems they try to monitor and correct, are also prone to molecular error. That is the nature of the beast. It is not God's fault, and I would say impossible to control by a better, more proficient, God.
I noted that this was your belief! And I noted that you believe God gave instructions on how to correct the errors he couldn’t correct, and these corrections were also subject to errors, and although he created the system from scratch, it wasn’t his fault, apart from those errors in the system that kill old people (and unavoidably kill young people), because those were deliberately designed.
dhw: We all know that things go wrong! Your solution to the problem of “errors” by your God - which we might call a branch of theodicy - is to present him as having invented a system which he could not control (so somehow this means the errors were not his fault)…
DAVID: Note the bold! If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault.
So if I invent a flying machine which crashes because of a technical error I can’t stop, you won’t blame me as you hurtle to oblivion.
dhw: …but he provided us with safeguards as well as the intelligence to correct some of the errors which he himself could not correct. The safeguards can only mean he did know how to correct some of the errors he did not know how to correct, and our intelligence must be greater than his if we can correct errors he couldn’t correct. I find this illogical, as well as running contrary to your often repeated belief that your God is all-powerful and always in control.
DAVID: Our knowledge is not greater than His. Note your red colored comment. We have figured out how some of His system works and can tailor it by using CRISPR made by His bacteria. We have to use His life inventions to do anything, so He is obviously superior.
I don’t need to note my own comment! If we can correct errors he can’t correct, then we are smarter than he is. If he exists, I honestly DON’T think we could be smarter than him. But you keep emphasizing the incompetence of your all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God, whereas I propose that he knew exactly what he was doing.
dhw: We should also remember that all these errors accumulated over thousands of millions of years of evolution (unless bacteria suffered from all the diseases now known to humankind!) and so the question must arise as to how and when these “safeguards” were actually installed? How could he have directly dabbled or provided the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year programme to correct errors he could not correct?
DAVID: I don't know when He recognized the problem during evolution, but I would guess quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. Note the blue comment: He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as He could. It all bothers you more than me; surprising as I believe in him, and you don't. So it is your problem, not mine.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with belief in God and everything to do with your increasingly illogical interpretation of your God’s nature, intentions and methods. Bacteria’s possible reproduction problems are pretty limited compared to the number of diseases (“errors”) that have evolved in the course of the last 3.8 billion years, and I’m sorry, but pointing out that I am an agnostic does not provide an answer to the question in blue.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Saturday, July 25, 2020, 19:02 (1580 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The bold did happen, remember!!! There are all sorts of backup systems at work, which show God recognized the problem as you note. But they, like the systems they try to monitor and correct, are also prone to molecular error. That is the nature of the beast. It is not God's fault, and I would say impossible to control by a better, more proficient, God.
dhw: I noted that this was your belief! And I noted that you believe God gave instructions on how to correct the errors he couldn’t correct, and these corrections were also subject to errors, and although he created the system from scratch, it wasn’t his fault, apart from those errors in the system that kill old people (and unavoidably kill young people), because those were deliberately designed.
The bold is true but ignores the fact that progressive aging to cause death is also purposely built in.
dhw: We all know that things go wrong! Your solution to the problem of “errors” by your God - which we might call a branch of theodicy - is to present him as having invented a system which he could not control (so somehow this means the errors were not his fault)…DAVID: Note the bold! If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault.
dhw: So if I invent a flying machine which crashes because of a technical error I can’t stop, you won’t blame me as you hurtle to oblivion.
A technical error is the designers fault!!! Like the MAX 737. These biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault.
DAVID: Our knowledge is not greater than His. Note your red colored comment. We have figured out how some of His system works and can tailor it by using CRISPR made by His bacteria. We have to use His life inventions to do anything, so He is obviously superior.dhw: I don’t need to note my own comment! If we can correct errors he can’t correct, then we are smarter than he is. If he exists, I honestly DON’T think we could be smarter than him. But you keep emphasizing the incompetence of your all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God, whereas I propose that he knew exactly what he was doing.
God is not incompetent and we are not smarter. God is not at work now and has left us in charge, with great brains to solve accidental problems, which we often can do. Your view of God is as weird as usual.
dhw: We should also remember that all these errors accumulated over thousands of millions of years of evolution (unless bacteria suffered from all the diseases now known to humankind!) and so the question must arise as to how and when these “safeguards” were actually installed? How could he have directly dabbled or provided the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year programme to correct errors he could not correct?DAVID: I don't know when He recognized the problem during evolution, but I would guess quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. Note the blue comment: He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as He could. It all bothers you more than me; surprising as I believe in him, and you don't. So it is your problem, not mine.
dhw: This has nothing whatsoever to do with belief in God and everything to do with your increasingly illogical interpretation of your God’s nature, intentions and methods. Bacteria’s possible reproduction problems are pretty limited compared to the number of diseases (“errors”) that have evolved in the course of the last 3.8 billion years, and I’m sorry, but pointing out that I am an agnostic does not provide an answer to the question in blue.
Your view of my presentations of God as illogical is due to your strange views about Him. I still believe in God despite my honest and logical presentation of biological problems that are not His fault. I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can't stop molecular errors in a system He created, and you question me as if I am against God!! Unbelievable role reversals. Don't believe the God of the Bible.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
dhw: I noted that you believe God gave instructions on how to correct the errors he couldn’t correct, and these corrections were also subject to errors, and although he created the system from scratch, it wasn’t his fault, apart from those errors in the system that kill old people (and unavoidably kill young people), because those were deliberately designed.
DAVID: The bold is true but ignores the fact that progressive aging to cause death is also purposely built in.
So he deliberately designed the diseases that kill old people (and accidentally kill young people) and he deliberately designed death from old age. There’s not a great deal left that you can say he didn’t deliberately design. It’s the death of young people which aparently was not part of his plan but was unavoidable and therefore, by some strange logic which I can’t follow, their death is not his fault.
DAVID:If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault.
dhw: So if I invent a flying machine which crashes because of a technical error I can’t stop, you won’t blame me as you hurtle to oblivion.
DAVID: A technical error is the designers fault!!! Like the MAX 737. These biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault.
But you keep telling us that it was your God who designed the molecules! Design is design, whether technological or biological. And if he's responsible for the designs that do work, why is he not responsible for the designs that don't?
dhw: If we can correct errors he can’t correct, then we are smarter than he is. If he exists, I honestly DON’T think we could be smarter than him. But you keep emphasizing the incompetence of your all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God, whereas I propose that he knew exactly what he was doing.
DAVID: God is not incompetent and we are not smarter. God is not at work now and has left us in charge, with great brains to solve accidental problems, which we often can do. Your view of God is as weird as usual.
He’s left us now, and our great brains can correct some of the errors he couldn’t correct. Somehow this means that although the errors were part of his design, they were not his fault, and somehow it means that we are not smarter than him. But if I suggest that your God knew what he was doing, and what you call errors were not errors at all but an integral part of his plan, I am the one with a “weird view” of God.
dhw: We should also remember that all these errors accumulated over thousands of millions of years of evolution (unless bacteria suffered from all the diseases now known to humankind!) and so the question must arise as to how and when these “safeguards” were actually installed? How could he have directly dabbled or provided the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year programme to correct errors he could not correct?
DAVID: Your view of my presentations of God as illogical is due to your strange views about Him. I still believe in God despite my honest and logical presentation of biological problems that are not His fault. I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can't stop molecular errors in a system He created, and you question me as if I am against God!! Unbelievable role reversals. Don't believe the God of the Bible.
A total misrepresentation of the whole argument, as you try to dodge the question in blue. I am not questioning your belief in God. I am questioning the logic behind your interpretation of the historical facts. For years you have objected to my theory that your God might have given free rein to evolution, because according to you he is all-powerful and always in control of everything. Now suddenly he is not all-powerful and he is not in control. Why? Because if he was, you would have to blame him for all the errors that indiscriminately cause disease and death. That is what I would call an “unbelievable role reversal”! And no, no, no, I do not question you as if you are against God! I question your interpretation of God’s nature, motives and methods.
QUOTE (from article on sialic acid)… This fertility barrier might have helped divide Homo populations into different species more than 2 million years ago, the researchers speculated. (DAVID’s bold)
DAVID: The last comment demonstrates that the battle with pathogens is a constantly changing arena of struggle. Note the bold. A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.
The authors attribute the change to a defence against malaria, and indeed, the battle is ongoing as new threats emerge demanding new cures. That is how the library of responses builds up, and again raises the problem of when your God is supposed to have designed the errors and the safeguards that did or didn’t work. Furthermore, the division into different species of homo plus “mutational errors” favoured by your God can hardly be said to fit in with your theory that your all-powerful, always-in-control God set out with the one and only purpose of “evolving” (which according to you = directly designing) H. sapiens.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Sunday, July 26, 2020, 18:47 (1579 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID:If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault.
dhw: So if I invent a flying machine which crashes because of a technical error I can’t stop, you won’t blame me as you hurtle to oblivion.
DAVID: A technical error is the designers fault!!! Like the MAX 737. These biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault.
dhw: But you keep telling us that it was your God who designed the molecules! Design is design, whether technological or biological. And if he's responsible for the designs that do work, why is he not responsible for the designs that don't?
God is not there holding hands with the molecules. They are designed to follow chemical commands, but the molecule may make its own mistake and mess up the reaction. Not God's fault, and He recognized the problem with backup systems in place. You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can't control.
DAVID: God is not at work now and has left us in charge, with great brains to solve accidental problems, which we often can do. Your view of God is as weird as usual.
dhw: He’s left us now, and our great brains can correct some of the errors he couldn’t correct. Somehow this means that although the errors were part of his design, they were not his fault, and somehow it means that we are not smarter than him. But if I suggest that your God knew what he was doing, and what you call errors were not errors at all but an integral part of his plan, I am the one with a “weird view” of God.
Yes, weird. The errors were not wanted, as shown by backup systems, which show the errors were anticipated.
DAVID: Your view of my presentations of God as illogical is due to your strange views about Him. I still believe in God despite my honest and logical presentation of biological problems that are not His fault. I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can't stop molecular errors in a system He created, and you question me as if I am against God!! Unbelievable role reversals. Don't believe the God of the Bible.dhw: A total misrepresentation of the whole argument, as you try to dodge the question in blue. I am not questioning your belief in God. I am questioning the logic behind your interpretation of the historical facts. For years you have objected to my theory that your God might have given free rein to evolution, because according to you he is all-powerful and always in control of everything. Now suddenly he is not all-powerful and he is not in control. Why? Because if he was, you would have to blame him for all the errors that indiscriminately cause disease and death. That is what I would call an “unbelievable role reversal”! And no, no, no, I do not question you as if you are against God! I question your interpretation of God’s nature, motives and methods.
I know you don't agree with my version of God, as you humanize Him beyond recognition. God dos not give free rein. He is too purposeful, our major disagreement.
QUOTE (from article on sialic acid)… This fertility barrier might have helped divide Homo populations into different species more than 2 million years ago, the researchers speculated. (DAVID’s bold)DAVID: The last comment demonstrates that the battle with pathogens is a constantly changing arena of struggle. Note the bold. A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.
dhw: The authors attribute the change to a defence against malaria, and indeed, the battle is ongoing as new threats emerge demanding new cures. That is how the library of responses builds up, and again raises the problem of when your God is supposed to have designed the errors and the safeguards that did or didn’t work. Furthermore, the division into different species of homo plus “mutational errors” favoured by your God can hardly be said to fit in with your theory that your all-powerful, always-in-control God set out with the one and only purpose of “evolving” (which according to you = directly designing) H. sapiens.
Note the bold. God did not want errors. If the mutation resulted in our evolution God achieved His goal!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
DAVID: A technical error is the designers fault!!! Like the MAX 737. These biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault.
dhw: But you keep telling us that it was your God who designed the molecules! Design is design, whether technological or biological. And if he's responsible for the designs that do work, why is he not responsible for the designs that don't?
DAVID: God is not there holding hands with the molecules. They are designed to follow chemical commands, but the molecule may make its own mistake and mess up the reaction. Not God's fault, and He recognized the problem with backup systems in place. You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can't control.
I’m going to skip most of my own responses now, and focus on your own statements, as you are creating an extraordinary pattern. Evidently your God created molecules which – whether he intended it or not – are capable of going their own way. They make “mistakes” which he does not want them to make, and even the backup systems don’t always work. And these “biological accidents are chance events.” Now consider these two comments of yours:
DAVID: “A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.”
DAVID: “God did not want errors. If the mutation resulted in our evolution God achieved His goal!”
All of a sudden, we have random mutations leading to humans, who were supposed to be God’s one and only purpose. You even go so far as to give equal billing to natural selection and to your God as “favouring” the random mutation, but there is certainly no question here of his controlling it. If a random mutation can result in the evolution of humans, random mutations can result in every other organ and organism that ever existed. Welcome to Darwinism. However, there is another possible interpretation. (At this point I’d prefer to substitute cells for molecules, since the latter are only part of the system.) If cells can go their own way and destroy one another, maybe they can also go their own way and defend one another or – since they may be capable of making changes that resulted in our evolution – maybe they can also create the changes which have resulted in the rest of evolution. You’ve told us that “God is not at work now”. Maybe he was not at work in the distant past either. In the picture you have just drawn for us, he designed the system, put in backups – some of which worked and some of which didn’t – and from then on (apart perhaps from the occasional dabble) the cells simply went their own way. In other words, they had free rein.
DAVID: I know you don't agree with my version of God, as you humanize Him beyond recognition. God dos not give free rein. He is too purposeful, our major disagreement.
I have dealt with the silly “humanization” argument elsewhere. The version of your God that you have just presented has him accidentally – despite all his best efforts to provide safeguards - giving free rein to molecules to make their own mistakes, although these random errors may have led to the evolution of humans. Our major disagreement most emphatically is not about God’s purposefulness. If he exists, I have no doubt that the whole history of evolution reflects his purpose. And I have offered you different possible and – by your own admission logical – interpretations both of his purpose and his method of achieving that purpose. However, I have NOT offered you a version in which I combine an all-purposeful, all-knowing, always-in-control God who is unable to control the system of life that he has created, whose one aim is to produce H. sapiens but who directly designs every non-human life form, lifestyle, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life before designing the only life form he wants to design, and whose one and only purpose may have been achieved through random mutations although he directly designs every species. I’m afraid I find such a version too illogical to support.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Monday, July 27, 2020, 23:55 (1578 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: But you keep telling us that it was your God who designed the molecules! Design is design, whether technological or biological. And if he's responsible for the designs that do work, why is he not responsible for the designs that don't?
DAVID: God is not there holding hands with the molecules. They are designed to follow chemical commands, but the molecule may make its own mistake and mess up the reaction. Not God's fault, and He recognized the problem with backup systems in place. You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can't control.
dhw: I’m going to skip most of my own responses now, and focus on your own statements, as you are creating an extraordinary pattern. Evidently your God created molecules which – whether he intended it or not – are capable of going their own way. They make “mistakes” which he does not want them to make, and even the backup systems don’t always work. And these “biological accidents are chance events.”
You miss the entire point, but state it. Once again: the molecules are programmed to have certain actions, but that programming is not an absolute control, and the molecules make mistakes in trying to follow it. Remember molecules must react with other molecules or properly fold to cause a reaction. they are not puppets!!!
Now consider these two comments of yours:
DAVID: “A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.”
Does't sound like me. I need the precise reference point to respond.
DAVID: “God did not want errors. If the mutation resulted in our evolution God achieved His goal!”
Fine. God created the mutation. Again, for clarity, where is the quote.
You’ve told us that “God is not at work now”. Maybe he was not at work in the distant past either. In the picture you have just drawn for us, he designed the system, put in backups – some of which worked and some of which didn’t – and from then on (apart perhaps from the occasional dabble) the cells simply went their own way. In other words, they had free rein.
My idea is God is not at work now pushing further evolution, but he is here. i'm never qa deist.
DAVID: I know you don't agree with my version of God, as you humanize Him beyond recognition. God dos not give free rein. He is too purposeful, our major disagreement.dhw: I have dealt with the silly “humanization” argument elsewhere.
Not silly. i enumerated your human reasons for Him many times.
dhw: The version of your God that you have just presented has him accidentally – despite all his best efforts to provide safeguards - giving free rein to molecules to make their own mistakes, although these random errors may have led to the evolution of humans. Our major disagreement most emphatically is not about God’s purposefulness. If he exists, I have no doubt that the whole history of evolution reflects his purpose. And I have offered you different possible and – by your own admission logical – interpretations both of his purpose and his method of achieving that purpose. However, I have NOT offered you a version in which I combine an all-purposeful, all-knowing, always-in-control God who is unable to control the system of life that he has created, whose one aim is to produce H. sapiens but who directly designs every non-human life form, lifestyle, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life before designing the only life form he wants to design, and whose one and only purpose may have been achieved through random mutations although he directly designs every species. I’m afraid I find such a version too illogical to support.
That's fine. I find God as powerful as He can be. You are still to influenced by Biblical version of God. My God differs. The bold is your usual wish for an impatient God, although you don't seem to realize that is exactly what your statement says.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
dhw: […] Evidently your God created molecules which – whether he intended it or not – are capable of going their own way. They make “mistakes” which he does not want them to make, and even the backup systems don’t always work. And these “biological accidents are chance events.”
DAVID: You miss the entire point, but state it. Once again: the molecules are programmed to have certain actions, but that programming is not an absolute control, and the molecules make mistakes in trying to follow it. Remember molecules must react with other molecules or properly fold to cause a reaction. they are not puppets!!!
A remarkable reversal of your usual claim that not only cells but also multicellular organisms ARE puppets. According to you, they have no mind of their own but follow God’s instructions: from leaf-biting, nest-building and camouflage, through to every bacterial response to every threat, and every successful defence mounted by the immune system – all preprogrammed or dabbled. I am the one who fights against the idea that cells are puppets and God is the puppet master. And now I have fight against your belief that he is a puppet master who can’t control his puppets.
DAVID: Now consider these two comments of yours:
They are comments of yours, not mine! So please consider them yourself.
DAVID: “A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.”
DAVID: Does'nt sound like me. I need the precise reference point to respond.
See your comment under “Human evolution: changes in sialic acid changed immunity” Saturday, July 25, 2020
DAVID: “God did not want errors. If the mutation resulted in our evolution God achieved His goal!”
DAVID: Fine. God created the mutation. Again, for clarity, where is the quote.
Sunday July 26 on this thread. Your first statement suggests that it would have been an error, not a deliberate creation. I’m sorry, but once you start positing contradictory theories, you are bound to get into more and more of a tangle trying to defend them.
dhw: You’ve told us that “God is not at work now”. Maybe he was not at work in the distant past either. In the picture you have just drawn for us, he designed the system, put in backups – some of which worked and some of which didn’t – and from then on (apart perhaps from the occasional dabble) the cells simply went their own way. In other words, they had free rein.
DAVID: My idea is God is not at work now pushing further evolution, but he is here. i'm never a deist.
An integral feature of deism is that God does not intervene, but that is not the point here. You have molecules going their own way, independently of your God’s instructions. So why can’t you allow for the possibility that once he had created them, he deliberately allowed them to go their own way? After all, you have now abandoned the concept of an all-powerful God always in control of everything, so why not at least remove the helpless tag and agree to the possibility that the free-running system he created may after all have been the system he wanted to create?
DAVID: I know you don't agree with my version of God, as you humanize Him beyond recognition. God dos not give free rein. He is too purposeful, our major disagreement.
dhw: I have dealt with the silly “humanization” argument elsewhere.
DAVID: Not silly. i enumerated your human reasons for Him many times.
I have many times enumerated possible alternatives involving thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours, and you have dismissed them on the grounds that they involve thought patterns, emotions, logic or attributes similar to ours, although you have explicitly stated that he probably has thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours! Please stop contradicting yourself.
dhw: I have NOT offered you a version in which I combine an all-purposeful, all-knowing, always-in-control God who is unable to control the system of life that he has created, whose one aim is to produce H. sapiens but who directly designs every non-human life form, lifestyle, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life before designing the only life form he wants to design, and whose one and only purpose may have been achieved through random mutations although he directly designs every species. I’m afraid I find such a version too illogical to support.
DAVID: That's fine. I find God as powerful as He can be. You are still to influenced by Biblical version of God. My God differs. The bold is your usual wish for an impatient God, although you don't seem to realize that is exactly what your statement says.
You have no idea how powerful your God can be, and my alternatives have nothing to do with the biblical version. Please quote the biblical references to experimentation, late arrival of humans in his thinking, giving cells the intelligence to do their own designing, creating life as a spectacle for himself, relief from eternal boredom… And the bold has nothing to do with patience – another of your red herrings to divert attention away from the illogicality of the bolded theory above. See the other thread.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 28, 2020, 18:12 (1577 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You miss the entire point, but state it. Once again: the molecules are programmed to have certain actions, but that programming is not an absolute control, and the molecules make mistakes in trying to follow it. Remember molecules must react with other molecules or properly fold to cause a reaction. they are not puppets!!!
dhw: A remarkable reversal of your usual claim that not only cells but also multicellular organisms ARE puppets. And now I have fight against your belief that he is a puppet master who can’t control his puppets.
His instructions are the only controls control, which molecules may incorrectly follow.
DAVID: “A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.”DAVID: Does'nt sound like me. I need the precise reference point to respond.
dhw: See your comment under “Human evolution: changes in sialic acid changed immunity” Saturday, July 25, 2020
Mutational errors may or may not be God, but it went forward with His permission.
DAVID: “God did not want errors. If the mutation resulted in our evolution God achieved His goal!”DAVID: Fine. God created the mutation. Again, for clarity, where is the quote.
dhw: Sunday July 26 on this thread. Your first statement suggests that it would have been an error, not a deliberate creation. I’m sorry, but once you start positing contradictory theories, you are bound to get into more and more of a tangle trying to defend them.
Reviewed. You still do not understand molecular errors. God may allow beneficial ones.
DAVID: My idea is God is not at work now pushing further evolution, but he is here. i'm never a deist.dhw: An integral feature of deism is that God does not intervene, but that is not the point here. You have molecules going their own way, independently of your God’s instructions. So why can’t you allow for the possibility that once he had created them, he deliberately allowed them to go their own way? After all, you have now abandoned the concept of an all-powerful God always in control of everything, so why not at least remove the helpless tag and agree to the possibility that the free-running system he created may after all have been the system he wanted to create?
Still confused. The molecules can make mistakes. God recognized this with backups present.
DAVID: Not silly. I enumerated your human reasons for Him many times.
dhw: I have many times enumerated possible alternatives involving thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours, and you have dismissed them on the grounds that they involve thought patterns, emotions, logic or attributes similar to ours, although you have explicitly stated that he probably has thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours! Please stop contradicting yourself.
No contradiction. How He applies His thoughts to purpose are only His. The similarity does not tell us His reasons for his actions.
dhw: You have no idea how powerful your God can be, and my alternatives have nothing to do with the biblical version. Please quote the biblical references to experimentation, late arrival of humans in his thinking, giving cells the intelligence to do their own designing, creating life as a spectacle for himself, relief from eternal boredom…
Thank you for the description of your humanizing thoughts. Perfect human thoughts ascribed to God, and you can't see it.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Tuesday, July 28, 2020, 19:36 (1577 days ago) @ David Turell
Mistakes in genetic controls of the immune system causes auto-immune diseases:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200728113550.htm
"A study published in the journal Nature Communications has pinpointed a number of areas of the human genome that may help explain the neonatal origins of chronic immune and inflammatory diseases of later life, including type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and celiac disease.
***
"Chronic immune diseases -- including type 1 diabetes, celiac disease and multiple sclerosis -- are caused by an overactive immune system and affect about 5 per cent of Australians. Allergies are immune-mediated too and affect one in five Australians, with hay fever, asthma, eczema, anaphylaxis and food allergies the most common. Inflammation and autoimmunity are also known to be driving factors in cardiovascular diseases, for example when an overactive immune system mistakenly attacks the heart.
***
"'Disease is partly due to changes, both large and small, in our genome -- the DNA that we're born with and which is a major driving force in all our cells. That means, genomics can be used to estimate disease risk from a very early age," Dr Inouye said.
"'Common diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, tend to be polygenic -- influenced by a large number of genetic variants scattered throughout the genome, which combine with environmental and lifestyle factors. By using new genomic technology and supercomputing capabilities, we can sift through this DNA data and piece together the puzzles that underlie each disease.
"'With so many diseases sharing a root in the immune system and inflammation we can leverage this information to better understand where each disease has a molecular weak spot and to what extent these are shared among different diseases.
"'We've shown this can be dissected using genetics and polygenic risk, hopefully leading to targeted preventative interventions for those who need them most, with the aim of keeping people living healthier for longer.'"
Comment: Autoimmune diseases are mistakes of the genetic immune system. God has given us a brain that can solve many of the problems created.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
DAVID: […] the molecules are programmed to have certain actions, but that programming is not an absolute control, and the molecules make mistakes in trying to follow it. Remember molecules must react with other molecules or properly fold to cause a reaction. they are not puppets!!!
dhw: A remarkable reversal of your usual claim that not only cells but also multicellular organisms ARE puppets. And now I have fight against your belief that he is a puppet master who can’t control his puppets.
DAVID: His instructions are the only controls control, which molecules may incorrectly follow.
And so he is a puppet master who can’t control his puppets.
DAVID: “A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.”
DAVID: Does'nt sound like me. I need the precise reference point to respond.
It was you. Why did you think it didn’t sound like you?
DAVID: Mutational errors may or may not be God, but it went forward with His permission.
So now you think he’s capable of preventing good mutational errors but is powerless to prevent bad ones.
DAVID: “God did not want errors. If the mutation resulted in our evolution God achieved His goal!”
dhw: Your first statement suggests that it would have been an error, not a deliberate creation. I’m sorry, but once you start positing contradictory theories, you are bound to get into more and more of a tangle trying to defend them.
DAVID: Reviewed. You still do not understand molecular errors. God may allow beneficial ones.
You still do not understand that a God who is capable of preventing beneficial errors but is incapable of preventing deleterious ones (a) has NOT deliberately created the beneficial ones, which makes nonsense of your argument that he is always in total control of evolution, and (b) is pathetically weak, especially in the light of the next comment, from your second post:
DAVID: Autoimmune diseases are mistakes of the genetic immune system. God has given us a brain that can solve many of the problems created.
He can’t solve some of the problems, but we can! Your God gets weaker every day.
dhw: […] you have now abandoned the concept of an all-powerful God always in control of everything, so why not at least remove the helpless tag and agree to the possibility that the free-running system he created may after all have been the system he wanted to create?
DAVID: Still confused. The molecules can make mistakes. God recognized this with backups present.
There is no confusion on my part! Your God designed the system and the mistakes show that he did not control the molecules – even with his backups. You have not answered my question. Why won’t you consider the possibility that he did not WANT to control the molecules, and that he WANTED to give them free rein to make both beneficial and deleterious changes to themselves?
dhw (re “humanizing” God): I have many times enumerated possible alternatives involving thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours, and you have dismissed them on the grounds that they involve thought patterns, emotions, logic or attributes similar to ours, although you have explicitly stated that he probably has thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours! Please stop contradicting yourself.
DAVID: No contradiction. How He applies His thoughts to purpose are only His. The similarity does not tell us His reasons for his actions.
Each of my alternatives offers reasons for his actions (if he exists). You dismiss them all because they “humanize” him, and yet you agree that he probably has human attributes!
DAVID: I find God as powerful as He can be. You are still to influenced by Biblical version of God.
dhw: You have no idea how powerful your God can be, and my alternatives have nothing to do with the biblical version. Please quote the biblical references to experimentation, late arrival of humans in his thinking, giving cells the intelligence to do their own designing, creating life as a spectacle for himself, relief from eternal boredom…
DAVID: Thank you for the description of your humanizing thoughts. Perfect human thoughts ascribed to God, and you can't see it.
This is getting sillier and sillier. You told me I was still too influenced by the Biblical version of God! I asked you to quote biblical references to any of my alternative explanations. Instead you tell me that my humanized versions are humanized, totally ignoring the point now bolded above: it is totally illogical for someone who agrees that his God probably has human attributes to dismiss a theory on the grounds that it endows his God with human attributes!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Wednesday, July 29, 2020, 18:22 (1576 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: And so he is a puppet master who can’t control his puppets.
So wrong. Puppets have direct controls. Molecules have instructions to follow, but mistakenly may not. Facts of life you refuse to accept.
DAVID: Mutational errors may or may not be God, but it went forward with His permission.dhw: So now you think he’s capable of preventing good mutational errors but is powerless to prevent bad ones.
Total misrepresentation. DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said.
DAVID: Reviewed. You still do not understand molecular errors. God may allow beneficial ones.
dhw: You still do not understand that a God who is capable of preventing beneficial errors but is incapable of preventing deleterious ones (a) has NOT deliberately created the beneficial ones, which makes nonsense of your argument that he is always in total control of evolution, and (b) is pathetically weak, especially in the light of the next comment, from your second post:
DAVID: Autoimmune diseases are mistakes of the genetic immune system. God has given us a brain that can solve many of the problems created.
Still entirely without comprehension. Repeated: "DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said."
dhw: He can’t solve some of the problems, but we can! Your God gets weaker every day.
Still entirely without comprehension. Repeated: "DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said." Our immune system is what we currently have. It makes mistakes. God is not in the business of fixing them now; it is up to us and our big brain.
dhw: […] you have now abandoned the concept of an all-powerful God always in control of everything, so why not at least remove the helpless tag and agree to the possibility that the free-running system he created may after all have been the system he wanted to create?DAVID: Still confused. The molecules can make mistakes. God recognized this with backups present.
dhw: There is no confusion on my part! Your God designed the system and the mistakes show that he did not control the molecules – even with his backups. You have not answered my question. Why won’t you consider the possibility that he did not WANT to control the molecules, and that he WANTED to give them free rein to make both beneficial and deleterious changes to themselves?
Again, an idea from an imagined weak humanized God. Why would He allow 'deleterious changes' when He purposely put in backup systems? I see a God with serious purpose. You don't.
dhw: You have no idea how powerful your God can be, and my alternatives have nothing to do with the biblical version. Please quote the biblical references to experimentation, late arrival of humans in his thinking, giving cells the intelligence to do their own designing, creating life as a spectacle for himself, relief from eternal boredom…DAVID: Thank you for the description of your humanizing thoughts. Perfect human thoughts ascribed to God, and you can't see it.
dhw: This is getting sillier and sillier. You told me I was still too influenced by the Biblical version of God! I asked you to quote biblical references to any of my alternative explanations. Instead you tell me that my humanized versions are humanized, totally ignoring the point now bolded above: it is totally illogical for someone who agrees that his God probably has human attributes to dismiss a theory on the grounds that it endows his God with human attributes!
My guesses about God's human side, responding as guesses requested by you, are just that. I prefer to look at his creator side, and not consider that his human side has any role in his decisions for creation. Silly is your total lack of comprehension of what molecules can do and how they are partially, not tightly, controlled.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
dhw: And so he is a puppet master who can’t control his puppets.
DAVID: So wrong. Puppets have direct controls. Molecules have instructions to follow, but mistakenly may not. Facts of life you refuse to accept.
So presumably your God gave up on dabbling. Of course I accept that things go wrong! But if molecules are able to disobey your once supposedly all-powerful God’s instructions, your God has either lost or has never had control over them. Like a puppet master who can’t control his puppets. A logical conclusion you refuse to accept.
DAVID: Mutational errors may or may not be God, but it went forward with His permission.
dhw: So now you think he’s capable of preventing good mutational errors but is powerless to prevent bad ones.
DAVID: Total misrepresentation. DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said.
If God chooses to leave a good mutation, he clearly has the power to eliminate it. However, you have forgotten that you told us he does NOT have the power to eliminate bad mutations (errors). Put your two statements together, and you have exactly what I said (now bolded). Please stop editing your own comments.
DAVID: You still do not understand molecular errors. God may allow beneficial ones.
dhw: You still do not understand that a God who is capable of preventing beneficial errors but is incapable of preventing deleterious ones (a) has NOT deliberately created the beneficial ones, which makes nonsense of your argument that he is always in total control of evolution, and (b) is pathetically weak, especially in the light of the next comment, from your second post:
DAVID: Autoimmune diseases are mistakes of the genetic immune system. God has given us a brain that can solve many of the problems created.
dhw: He can’t solve some of the problems, but we can! Your God gets weaker every day.
DAVID: Still entirely without comprehension. Repeated: "DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said." Our immune system is what we currently have. It makes mistakes. God is not in the business of fixing them now; it is up to us and our big brain.
According to you he was incapable of solving the problems in the past. I don’t know what sort of business you think he is involved in now, but if you are implying that he could solve them now if he wanted to, then we would have a learning God very different from the all-knowing one you started out with, though fitting in nicely with one who experiments or gets new ideas as he goes along. Meanwhile, you are still stuck with your proposal that we are better at fixing his errors than he is.
dhw: Why won’t you consider the possibility that he did not WANT to control the molecules, and that he WANTED to give them free rein to make both beneficial and deleterious changes to themselves?
DAVID: Again, an idea from an imagined weak humanized God. Why would He allow 'deleterious changes' when He purposely put in backup systems? I see a God with serious purpose. You don't.
Please stop pretending that your God has serious purpose and then refusing to say what that serious purpose is. According to you he did not “allow” deleterious changes. He could not prevent them. And according to you, even his backup systems didn’t always work. That makes him considerably weaker than the God I am proposing, who WANTED the system we have. The so-called backup systems would have evolved over time as free running organisms tried to combat those free running forces whose survival threatened their own. The conflict between good and bad at all levels would then be integral to your God’s purpose, as would death. Why do you refuse to even consider the possibility that your God is not the weak and helpless designer of an imperfect system whose errors he can’t correct, but who deliberately designed the system we have? We needn’t even discuss possible purposes for doing so, since you “prefer to look at his creator side, and not consider that his human side has any role in his decisions for creation.”
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Thursday, July 30, 2020, 21:19 (1575 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: So wrong. Puppets have direct controls. Molecules have instructions to follow, but mistakenly may not. Facts of life you refuse to accept.
dhw: So presumably your God gave up on dabbling.
Dabbling was for new evolutionary steps, nothing more.
DAVID: Mutational errors may or may not be God, but it went forward with His permission.
dhw: If God chooses to leave a good mutation, he clearly has the power to eliminate it. However, you have forgotten that you told us he does NOT have the power to eliminate bad mutations (errors).
Show me where I said the bold. Not my thought.
DAVID: Still entirely without comprehension. Repeated: "DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said." Our immune system is what we currently have. It makes mistakes. God is not in the business of fixing them now; it is up to us and our big brain.
dhw: According to you he was incapable of solving the problems in the past. I don’t know what sort of business you think he is involved in now, but if you are implying that he could solve them now if he wanted to, then we would have a learning God very different from the all-knowing one you started out with, though fitting in nicely with one who experiments or gets new ideas as he goes along. Meanwhile, you are still stuck with your proposal that we are better at fixing his errors than he is.
Weird set of comments. My view is that God ran and monitored evolution until sapiens was well established in the current form. The bold is totally wrong in my view. In the past God took total control and managed evolution as He wished. I'm not implying what you wished I imply. I don't change. The red sentence is also something you infer from nowhere. We fix things now that we are in charge. God not stepping in now.
dhw: Why won’t you consider the possibility that he did not WANT to control the molecules, and that he WANTED to give them free rein to make both beneficial and deleterious changes to themselves?DAVID: Again, an idea from an imagined weak humanized God. Why would He allow 'deleterious changes' when He purposely put in backup systems? I see a God with serious purpose. You don't.
dhw: Please stop pretending that your God has serious purpose and then refusing to say what that serious purpose is.
I don't refuse. Humans are the purpose. Still distorting.
dhw: According to you he did not “allow” deleterious changes. He could not prevent them. And according to you, even his backup systems didn’t always work.
True, a fact of life, I can accept.
dhw: That makes him considerably weaker than the God I am proposing, who WANTED the system we have. The so-called backup systems would have evolved over time as free running organisms tried to combat those free running forces whose survival threatened their own. The conflict between good and bad at all levels would then be integral to your God’s purpose, as would death. Why do you refuse to even consider the possibility that your God is not the weak and helpless designer of an imperfect system whose errors he can’t correct, but who deliberately designed the system we have? We needn’t even discuss possible purposes for doing so, since you “prefer to look at his creator side, and not consider that his human side has any role in his decisions for creation.”
Simple answer. God is not human and nothing like the God you wish He were. No form of any God could control molecular mistakes in free-floating molecules which are supposed to respond properly to specific stimuli. It seems you cannot or refuse to understand a very simple biochemical concept. I teach the best I can.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
DAVID: A mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.
dhw: Why did you think it didn’t sound like you?
DAVID: Mutational errors may or may not be God, but it went forward with His permission.
dhw: If God chooses to leave a good mutation, he clearly has the power to eliminate it. However, you have forgotten that you told us he does NOT have the power to eliminate bad mutations (errors).
DAVID: Show me where I said the bold. Not my thought.
Sunday July 26 (and several times before that, addressed to me): “You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control.” All part of your convoluted argument (Friday July 24) that “If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault. “ But directly contradicted by the bold below ("God chooses to...eliminate them.") One contradiction after another.
DAVID: "DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said." Our immune system is what we currently have. It makes mistakes. God is not in the business of fixing them now; it is up to us and our big brain. (dhw's bold)
dhw: According to you he was incapable of solving the problems in the past. I don’t know what sort of business you think he is involved in now, but if you are implying that he could solve them now if he wanted to, then we would have a learning God very different from the all-knowing one you started out with, though fitting in nicely with one who experiments or gets new ideas as he goes along. Meanwhile, you are still stuck with your proposal that we are better at fixing his errors than he is.
DAVID: Weird set of comments. My view is that God ran and monitored evolution until sapiens was well established in the current form. The bold is totally wrong in my view. In the past God took total control and managed evolution as He wished.
How can he have been in total control in the past if he couldn’t control the errors in the system and is not in the business of fixing them in the present?
DAVID: I'm not implying what you wished I imply. I don't change. The red sentence is also something you infer from nowhere. We fix things now that we are in charge. God not stepping in now.
He couldn’t control the errors, and yet we can, but you don’t agree that this makes us better at fixing his errors than he is!
dhw: Why won’t you consider the possibility that he did not WANT to control the molecules, and that he WANTED to give them free rein to make both beneficial and deleterious changes to themselves?
DAVID: Again, an idea from an imagined weak humanized God. Why would He allow 'deleterious changes' when He purposely put in backup systems? I see a God with serious purpose. You don't.
dhw: Please stop pretending that your God has serious purpose and then refusing to say what that serious purpose is.
DAVID: I don't refuse. Humans are the purpose. Still distorting.
You won’t tell us his serious purpose for creating humans, and try to avoid telling us the serious purpose behind his direct design of all the extinct life forms, or you propose that they were all designed to provide a food supply for humans who were not even there.
dhw: […] Why do you refuse to even consider the possibility that your God is not the weak and helpless designer of an imperfect system whose errors he can’t correct, but who deliberately designed the system we have? We needn’t even discuss possible purposes for doing so, since you “prefer to look at his creator side, and not consider that his human side has any role in his decisions for creation.”
DAVID: Simple answer. God is not human and nothing like the God you wish He were.
I do not wish anything. I am looking for a logical explanation of life and – if God exists – his actions and possible nature and motives. I have never said God is human. But I agree fully with your various statements that he probably has thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours.
-
DAVID: No form of any God could control molecular mistakes in free-floating molecules which are supposed to respond properly to specific stimuli. It seems you cannot or refuse to understand a very simple biochemical concept. I teach the best I can.
You gloss over as many of your contradictions as you can. According to you, we humans can correct some of the errors that your God could not correct, but we’re not smarter than him. And although every life form that ever existed is based on the molecular processes you describe, and although he could not control the errors in the process, in the past apparently he was in “total control” and could “allow” good mutations (though elsewhere you have him directly designing every one that led to new life forms etc.), but couldn’t stop the bad ones! Do please stop pretending that the simple biological concept – which of course I accept – is the subject of our disagreement. The problem is the total confusion caused by your interpretation of your God’s intentions and powers.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Friday, July 31, 2020, 18:09 (1574 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: "DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said." Our immune system is what we currently have. It makes mistakes. God is not in the business of fixing them now; it is up to us and our big brain. (dhw's bold)
dhw: According to you he was incapable of solving the problems in the past. I don’t know what sort of business you think he is involved in now, but if you are implying that he could solve them now if he wanted to, then we would have a learning God very different from the all-knowing one you started out with, though fitting in nicely with one who experiments or gets new ideas as he goes along. Meanwhile, you are still stuck with your proposal that we are better at fixing his errors than he is.
Your total confusion about God involves when God acts and when He doesn't. During evolution prior to our appearance He was in total control of evolution and all advancing changes. He allowed beneficial mistakes as stated above, which shows that even at a time of total control molecular mistakes could happen Now we are in charge to handle molecular mistakes, but God is many times more powerful than we are. I have no idea why He is totally letting us handle it.
DAVID: Weird set of comments. My view is that God ran and monitored evolution until sapiens was well established in the current form. The bold is totally wrong in my view. In the past God took total control and managed evolution as He wished.dhw: How can he have been in total control in the past if he couldn’t control the errors in the system and is not in the business of fixing them in the present?
You are not understanding my position about God as clearly stated during evolution of us and now.
dhw: You won’t tell us his serious purpose for creating humans,
I can guess why, as before, but why bother guessing? I cannot specifically tell you why. All your guesses have been humanizing.
-
DAVID: No form of any God could control molecular mistakes in free-floating molecules which are supposed to respond properly to specific stimuli. It seems you cannot or refuse to understand a very simple biochemical concept. I teach the best I can.dhw: You gloss over as many of your contradictions as you can. According to you, we humans can correct some of the errors that your God could not correct, but we’re not smarter than him. And although every life form that ever existed is based on the molecular processes you describe, and although he could not control the errors in the process, in the past apparently he was in “total control” and could “allow” good mutations (though elsewhere you have him directly designing every one that led to new life forms etc.), but couldn’t stop the bad ones! Do please stop pretending that the simple biological concept – which of course I accept – is the subject of our disagreement. The problem is the total confusion caused by your interpretation of your God’s intentions and powers.
Anyone reading this discussion will realize you are confused and not understanding what I present. Again, God in total control during evolution, correcting all errors and allowing ones that created beneficial changes. Now appears not active, although I concede He may be in ways we do not recognize. Key point: under His watch in evolution, the molecule, DNA, made mistakes. Horror of all horrors, He couldn't control the mistakes, but could allows the good ones and correct the others. Now, for His own reasons, which I do not know or want to guess at, we are in charge. I am consistent in my theorizing. Your comments and criticisms are all over the place, and I think generally confused.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
For the sake of brevity, I will only reproduce and answer your responses to my last post.
DAVID: Your total confusion about God involves when God acts and when He doesn't. During evolution prior to our appearance He was in total control of evolution and all advancing changes. He allowed beneficial mistakes as stated above, which shows that even at a time of total control molecular mistakes could happen. Now we are in charge to handle molecular mistakes, but God is many times more powerful than we are. I have no idea why He is totally letting us handle it.
Bearing in mind your comment that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”, and God “allows beneficial mistakes”, we now have a God who does NOT design the changes that cause evolution. He only allows them. But if he allows them, the inference is that he is able to stop them, whereas you have repeatedly told us that “he couldn’t stop the molecular errors”. And these contradictions are supposed to indicate "total control"! Furthermore, if God couldn’t stop the molecular errors prior to our arrival but we can stop them now (please remember that we have inherited the errors – they didn’t just start with us), we clearly know more about handling them than he did. I don't think the “total confusion” is mine.
DAVID: Anyone reading this discussion will realize you are confused and not understanding what I present. Again, God in total control during evolution, correcting all errors and allowing ones that created beneficial changes. Now appears not active, although I concede He may be in ways we do not recognize. Key point: under His watch in evolution, the molecule, DNA, made mistakes. Horror of all horrors, He couldn't control the mistakes, but could allows the good ones and correct the others. Now, for His own reasons, which I do not know or want to guess at, we are in charge. I am consistent in my theorizing. Your comments and criticisms are all over the place, and I think generally confused.
Now you have your pre-sapiens God in total control, “correcting all errors” (although you tell us he couldn’t stop or control them and even provided backups which often didn’t work), and “allowing” the beneficial ones instead of directly designing (your normal theory) all the changes that lead to speciation. If we take into account your statement that “these biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault”, we have what to you really is the horror of horrors: pure Darwinism – evolution by means of random mutations and natural selection. Your God's role is simply to allow it to happen.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Saturday, August 01, 2020, 15:15 (1573 days ago) @ dhw
For the sake of brevity, I will only reproduce and answer your responses to my last post.
DAVID: Your total confusion about God involves when God acts and when He doesn't. During evolution prior to our appearance He was in total control of evolution and all advancing changes. He allowed beneficial mistakes as stated above, which shows that even at a time of total control molecular mistakes could happen. Now we are in charge to handle molecular mistakes, but God is many times more powerful than we are. I have no idea why He is totally letting us handle it.
dhw: Bearing in mind your comment that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”, and God “allows beneficial mistakes”, we now have a God who does NOT design the changes that cause evolution. He only allows them. But if he allows them, the inference is that he is able to stop them, whereas you have repeatedly told us that “he couldn’t stop the molecular errors”. And these contradictions are supposed to indicate "total control"! Furthermore, if God couldn’t stop the molecular errors prior to our arrival but we can stop them now (please remember that we have inherited the errors – they didn’t just start with us), we clearly know more about handling them than he did. I don't think the “total confusion” is mine.
Your analysis of what I presented shows your total lack of understanding. The molecular errors we are discussing are not during evolution, but errors we see in current living organisms. Errors that influenced evolutionary direction of course were allowed if God approved of them. Please concentrate on current errors
DAVID: Anyone reading this discussion will realize you are confused and not understanding what I present. Again, God in total control during evolution, correcting all errors and allowing ones that created beneficial changes. Now appears not active, although I concede He may be in ways we do not recognize. Key point: under His watch in evolution, the molecule, DNA, made mistakes. Horror of all horrors, He couldn't control the mistakes, but could allows the good ones and correct the others. Now, for His own reasons, which I do not know or want to guess at, we are in charge. I am consistent in my theorizing. Your comments and criticisms are all over the place, and I think generally confused.dhw: Now you have your pre-sapiens God in total control, “correcting all errors” (although you tell us he couldn’t stop or control them and even provided backups which often didn’t work), and “allowing” the beneficial ones instead of directly designing (your normal theory) all the changes that lead to speciation. If we take into account your statement that “these biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault”, we have what to you really is the horror of horrors: pure Darwinism – evolution by means of random mutations and natural selection. Your God's role is simply to allow it to happen.
Still your total confusion about what I present. The subject is current errors and the fact that God knew molecules might make mistaken responses to directive stimuli and designed backup corrective mechanisms. In evolution obviously God was in total control of DNA code and its mutational changes..
David's theory of evolution: God's correction of errors
by David Turell , Saturday, August 01, 2020, 18:31 (1573 days ago) @ David Turell
There are no God errors, but God's recognition of potential molecular errors. Here is one example of corrective actions:
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-cell-scientists-uncover-rna-modifying-enzyme.html
"Scientists led by Javier Martinez from the Max Perutz Labs, a joint venture of the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Vienna, have identified a unique chemical reaction at the end of RNA molecules for the first time in human cells. This reaction was previously only observed in bacteria and viruses. Tracing its source among thousands of proteins, they discovered that an unexpected culprit, an enzyme called ANGEL2, executes this reaction. ANGEL2 may play a key role in regulating the response to cellular stress, and possibly in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases.
***
"Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a biomolecule with numerous functions. Among them, RNA can transmit the genetic information contained in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), for conversion into proteins, the workhorses of the cell. RNA is composed of a chain of building blocks called nucleotides. Nucleotides also contain sugar groups, and chemical modifications in the last sugar of an RNA chain are critical for a variety of cellular processes.
***
"Finally, together with the co-author Stefan Weitzer, she identified ANGEL2 as the much sought-after enzyme.
"ANGEL2 belongs to a family of enzymes known as deadenylases, that carry out a radically different reaction on RNA ends. Deadenylases remove a string of adenosines found at the end of messenger RNAs, a specific class of RNAs. Removal of this particular type of nucleotide leads to the degradation of mRNAs. By performing structural analyses as part of a collaboration with Mar-tin Jinek and Alena Kroupova at the University of Zurich, the scientists could reveal the reaction mechanism of ANGEL2 and explain why it does remove cyclic phosphates rather than eliminating adenosines.
"Modifying the levels of ANGEL2 in cells provided important clues about its bio-logical function. ANGEL2 emerged as involved in a type of stress reaction called the unfolded protein response (UPR). In order for proteins to carry out their functions, the amino acid chain has to be correctly folded. The UPR is triggered when misfolded, non-functional proteins accumulate due to cellular disturbances. The UPR seeks to correct the protein-folding defect and to re-store normal function of the cell. "We could ultimately show that ANGEL2 regulates the UPR, a significant finding since perturbation in the UPR is in-volved in neurodegenerative and metabolic disorders," conclude the research-ers." (my bold)
Comment: A clear example of molecular error is misfolding (note my bold) and this backup mechanism is present to correct the errors, which leads to my conclusion, God recognized the probability and put corrective mechanisms in place in functioning cells.
David's theory of evolution: God's correction of errors
by David Turell , Sunday, August 02, 2020, 20:40 (1572 days ago) @ David Turell
Here is the mechanism of editors correcting DNA errors:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200716123002.htm
"New research shows how proofreading proteins prevent DNA replication errors by creating an immobile structure that calls more proteins to the site to repair the error. This structure could also prevent the mismatched region from being ''packed'' back into the cell during division.
"On the DNA assembly line, two proofreading proteins work together as an emergency stop button to prevent replication errors. New research from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill shows how these proteins -- MutL and MutS -- prevent DNA replication errors by creating an immobile structure that calls more proteins to the site to repair the error. This structure could also prevent the mismatched region from being "packed" back into the cell during division.
***
"The nucleotides are a correct match most of the time, but occasionally -- about one time in 10 million -- there is a mismatch.
"'Although mismatches are rare, the human genome contains approximately six billion nucleotides in every cell, resulting in approximately 600 errors per cell, and the human body consists of more than 37 trillion cells," says Dorothy Erie, chemistry professor at UNC-Chapel Hill,
***
"A pair of proteins known as MutS and MutL work together to initiate repair of these mismatches. MutS slides along the newly created side of the DNA strand after it's replicated, proofreading it. When it finds a mismatch, it locks into place at the site of the error and recruits MutL to come and join it. MutL marks the newly formed DNA strand as defective and signals a different protein to gobble up the portion of the DNA containing the error. Then the nucleotide matching starts over, filling the gap again. The entire process reduces replication errors around a thousand-fold,
***
"...the researchers found that MutL "freezes" MutS in place at the site of the mismatch, forming a stable complex that stays in that vicinity until repair can take place. The complex appears to reel in the DNA around the mismatch as well, marking and protecting the DNA region until repair can occur.
"'Due to the mobility of these proteins, current thinking envisioned MutS and MutL sliding freely along the mismatched strand, rather than stopping," Weninger says. "This work demonstrates that the process is different than previously thought.
"'Additionally, the complex's interaction with the strand effectively stops any other processes until repair takes place. So the defective DNA strand cannot be repacked into a chromosome and then carried forward through cell division.'"
Comment: Here again we see a corrective mechanism designed by God to correct expected errors. My reasoning is simple as before. The corrective design must be present when each species appears or it would not survive repetitive errors that would occur. It is not a matter of a weak God but one who fully understands the problems attendant with living biochemical high-speed functions.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
DAVID: Your total confusion about God involves when God acts and when He doesn't. During evolution prior to our appearance He was in total control of evolution and all advancing changes. He allowed beneficial mistakes as stated above, which shows that even at a time of total control molecular mistakes could happen. Now we are in charge to handle molecular mistakes, but God is many times more powerful than we are. I have no idea why He is totally letting us handle it.(dhw’s bold)
dhw: Bearing in mind your comment that, and God “allows beneficial mistakes”, we now have a God who does NOT design the changes that cause evolution. He only allows them. But if he allows them, the inference is that he is able to stop them, whereas you have repeatedly told us that “he couldn’t stop the molecular errors”. And these contradictions are supposed to indicate "total control"! Furthermore, if God couldn’t stop the molecular errors prior to our arrival but we can stop them now (please remember that we have inherited the errors – they didn’t just start with us), we clearly know more about handling them than he did. I don't think the “total confusion” is mine.
DAVID: Your analysis of what I presented shows your total lack of understanding. The molecular errors we are discussing are not during evolution, but errors we see in current living organisms. Errors that influenced evolutionary direction of course were allowed if God approved of them. Please concentrate on current errors.
How can I when you tell us that “prior to our appearance…he allowed beneficial mistakes…which shows that even at a time of total control (i.e. before sapiens) molecular mistakes could happen", and indeed according to you “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”. The errors have always been present in the system! Various articles examine various current errors, but it is you who have told us that prior to our existence, your God could not control or stop the errors. According to you, he is not doing anything now – not even trying in vain to control the errors with his backups. It’s in our hands. Why must I confine your God’s doings to a time (i.e. the present) when he is not doing anything? Look at your next comments!
DAVID: Again, God in total control during evolution, correcting all errors and allowing ones that created beneficial changes[/b].
It is you who are telling us about “during evolution”, and here you tell us that he corrects all errors, although elsewhere he can’t control or stop the errors, but he can allow the beneficial ones – which suggests he COULD stop them if he wanted to, even though he COULDN’T stop the errors, as in your next remark:
DAVID: Horror of all horrors, He couldn't control the mistakes, but could allow the good ones and correct the others. Now, for His own reasons, which I do not know or want to guess at, we are in charge.
It could hardly be clearer that the horrors you are referring to are past errors.
dhw: Now you have your pre-sapiens God in total control, “correcting all errors” (although you tell us he couldn’t stop or control them and even provided backups which often didn’t work), and “allowing” the beneficial ones instead of directly designing (your normal theory) all the changes that lead to speciation. If we take into account your statement that “these biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault”, we have what to you really is the horror of horrors: pure Darwinism – evolution by means of random mutations and natural selection. Your God's role is simply to allow it to happen.
DAVID: Still your total confusion about what I present. The subject is current errors and the fact that God knew molecules might make mistaken responses to directive stimuli and designed backup corrective mechanisms. In evolution obviously God was in total control of DNA code and its mutational changes.
No, the subject is not current errors, and your last sentence contradicts all the now bolded statements of yours relating to evolution. I’m sorry, but the total confusion is yours.
DAVID: There are no God errors, but God's recognition of potential molecular errors. Here is one example of corrective actions:
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-cell-scientists-uncover-rna-modifying-enzyme.html
DAVID: A clear example of molecular error is misfolding (note my bold) and this backup mechanism is present to correct the errors, which leads to my conclusion, God recognized the probability and put corrective mechanisms in place in functioning cells.
The error was already present in bacteria and viruses, and although he couldn’t stop it or control it, apparently he was able to correct it, although he is unable to correct the errors he is unable to correct, and as far as current errors are concerned, he is no longer involved and leaves it to us to correct the errors he could not stop or control. I can’t help wondering if perhaps he simply gave cells the intelligence to deal with problems as they arose – and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they don’t.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
by David Turell , Sunday, August 02, 2020, 21:22 (1572 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your analysis of what I presented shows your total lack of understanding. The molecular errors we are discussing are not during evolution, but errors we see in current living organisms. Errors that influenced evolutionary direction of course were allowed if God approved of them. Please concentrate on current errors.
dhw: How can I when you tell us that “prior to our appearance…he allowed beneficial mistakes…which shows that even at a time of total control (i.e. before sapiens) molecular mistakes could happen", and indeed according to you “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”. The errors have always been present in the system!
Agreed, and I contend during evolution God stepped in and corrected those He wanted dismissed and kept those that were benefical to his plans.
dhw: Various articles examine various current errors, but it is you who have told us that prior to our existence, your God could not control or stop the errors. According to you, he is not doing anything now – not even trying in vain to control the errors with his backups. It’s in our hands. Why must I confine your God’s doings to a time (i.e. the present) when he is not doing anything? Look at your next comments!
See above. That is my continuous position. I don't know why you are so confused about the different times. I'll admit I may not ave made my thoughts clear to you as to how God did things as He ran evolution and the present time.
DAVID: Horror of all horrors, He couldn't control the mistakes, but could allow the good ones and correct the others. Now, for His own reasons, which I do not know or want to guess at, we are in charge.dhw: It could hardly be clearer that the horrors you are referring to are past errors.
Total misreading: the 'horror' is for you. God knew full well to watch for mistakes by molecules not reacting properly. In evolution when mistakes occurred He corrected them as stated. He knew all along they would occur, as anyone who knows during very high-speed biochemical reactions molecules don't always react properly. It is why those corrective mechanism exist now.
DAVID: Still your total confusion about what I present. The subject is current errors and the fact that God knew molecules might make mistaken responses to directive stimuli and designed backup corrective mechanisms. In evolution obviously God was in total control of DNA code and its mutational changes.dhw: No, the subject is not current errors, and your last sentence contradicts all the now bolded statements of yours relating to evolution. I’m sorry, but the total confusion is yours.
Still your confusion.
DAVID: There are no God errors, but God's recognition of potential molecular errors. Here is one example of corrective actions:
https://phys.org/news/2020-07-cell-scientists-uncover-rna-modifying-enzyme.html
DAVID: A clear example of molecular error is misfolding (note my bold) and this backup mechanism is present to correct the errors, which leads to my conclusion, God recognized the probability and put corrective mechanisms in place in functioning cells.
dhw: The error was already present in bacteria and viruses, and although he couldn’t stop it or control it, apparently he was able to correct it, although he is unable to correct the errors he is unable to correct, and as far as current errors are concerned, he is no longer involved and leaves it to us to correct the errors he could not stop or control. I can’t help wondering if perhaps he simply gave cells the intelligence to deal with problems as they arose – and sometimes they succeed and sometimes they don’t.
You just can't seem to accept that God fully recognized His inability to control molecules under His instruction when they made a mistakes. It is all quite clear to me, and I will try to make it clear to you. During evolution He corrected everything, now He relies upon us. See today's entry about DNA error controls which I feel were designed by God.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors
DAVID: Your analysis of what I presented shows your total lack of understanding. The molecular errors we are discussing are not during evolution, but errors we see in current living organisms. Errors that influenced evolutionary direction of course were allowed if God approved of them. Please concentrate on current errors.
dhw: How can I when you tell us that “prior to our appearance…he allowed beneficial mistakes…which shows that even at a time of total control (i.e. before sapiens) molecular mistakes could happen", and indeed according to you “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”. The errors have always been present in the system!
DAVID: Agreed, and I contend during evolution God stepped in and corrected those He wanted dismissed and kept those that were benefical to his plans.
First you tell me we are only discussing current errors. Now you agree we are discussing evolution. Thank you. As regards evolution, how could he have kept or corrected the errors if he had no control over them? Read your own statements: “If He couldn’t stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault.” “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” “You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control” “I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” Your theory changes day by day.
DAVID: I don't know why you are so confused about the different times. I'll admit I may not Have made my thoughts clear to you as to how God did things as He ran evolution and the present time.
It is you who are confused about the times, and you have not made your thoughts clear to me because they are not clear to you. They are full of contradictions, as above. The rest of your post simply repeats the contradictions I have pointed out above, so I’ll skip all but the last exchange:
DAVID: You just can't seem to accept that God fully recognized His inability to control molecules under His instruction when they made a mistakes. It is all quite clear to me, and I will try to make it clear to you. During evolution He corrected everything, now He relies upon us.
We are talking about evolution, and you can’t see the contradiction: God “fully recognized his inability to control the molecules”, but he “corrected everything”! How do you correct what you can’t control? As for relying on us, I wonder when he told you that, and I’m also surprised at your belief that your once all-powerful God now relies on us being smarter than him and being able to correct the errors he couldn’t correct.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, August 03, 2020, 15:28 (1571 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Monday, August 03, 2020, 15:34
DAVID: Agreed, and I contend during evolution God stepped in and corrected those He wanted dismissed and kept those that were benefical to his plans.
dhw: First you tell me we are only discussing current errors. Now you agree we are discussing evolution. Thank you. As regards evolution, how could he have kept or corrected the errors if he had no control over them? Read your own statements: “If He couldn’t stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault.” “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” “You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control” “I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” Your theory changes day by day.
We are discussing two periods in time. My statement above is quite clear. Please re-read it. It means during evolution, when errors occurred by the molecules, He stepped in and made corrections. The concept is the molecules are free to make errors always. Now we try to correct errors.
dhw: I’ll skip all but the last exchange:
DAVID: You just can't seem to accept that God fully recognized His inability to control molecules under His instruction when they made a mistakes. It is all quite clear to me, and I will try to make it clear to you. During evolution He corrected everything, now He relies upon us.
dhw: We are talking about evolution, and you can’t see the contradiction: God “fully recognized his inability to control the molecules”, but he “corrected everything”! How do you correct what you can’t control? As for relying on us, I wonder when he told you that, and I’m also surprised at your belief that your once all-powerful God now relies on us being smarter than him and being able to correct the errors he couldn’t correct.
It is completely clear to me. At all times the molecules are free to make rare mistakes in the high speed biochemical reactions of living functions. Please note the article on
DNA correction: Sunday, August 02, 2020, 20:40
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: […] I contend during evolution God stepped in and corrected those He wanted dismissed and kept those that were benefical to his plans.
dhw: First you tell me we are only discussing current errors. Now you agree we are discussing evolution. Thank you. As regards evolution, how could he have kept or corrected the errors if he had no control over them?
DAVID: We are discussing two periods in time. My statement above is quite clear. Please re-read it. It means during evolution, when errors occurred by the molecules, He stepped in and made corrections.
According to you, God is not doing anything in the present. So what period in time are you referring to when you say he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, was correcting as much as he could, high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control, and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created? And are you telling us that during pre-sapiens evolution, all animals – other than those that were eaten – died of old age? (See below.)
DAVID: You just can't seem to accept that God fully recognized His inability to control molecules under His instruction when they made a mistakes.[…]. During evolution He corrected everything, now He relies upon us.
dhw: We are talking about evolution, and you can’t see the contradiction: God “fully recognized his inability to control the molecules”, but he “corrected everything”! How do you correct what you can’t control? […]
DAVID: It is completely clear to me. At all times the molecules are free to make rare mistakes in the high speed biochemical reactions of living functions.
According to you, the “rare” mistakes include those deliberately designed to kill through old age, and those that accidentally kill any organism unlucky enough to suffer them before old age, plus those that arise purely by chance and CANNOT be controlled by God although he CAN allow them if beneficial and CAN correct all those that he doesn’t like. Once again. How do you correct something you can’t control and can’t stop?
DAVID: Please note the article on
DNA correction: Sunday, August 02, 2020, 20:40
DAVID: The concept is the molecules are free to make errors always. Now we try to correct errors.
It referred to the period of evolution, but didn’t resolve the above contradictions. But I like the concept of free molecules (see below and “Back to David’s theory of evolution”), and of course we try to correct errors now. I don’t think this adds anything to the discussion on the limitations you impose on your God’s powers, or on how evolution progresses.
DAVID: At all times the molecules are free to make rare mistakes in the high speed biochemical reactions of living functions.
Yes, at all times, throughout the history of speciation. And whether your God can or can’t control them, one of those “mistakes” may have “arranged for our human evolution”, and you have delivered a powerful blow to your theory that your God directly designed every species. (See “Back to David’s theory of evolution”).
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 04, 2020, 19:13 (1570 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We are discussing two periods in time. My statement above is quite clear. Please re-read it. It means during evolution, when errors occurred by the molecules, He stepped in and made corrections.
dhw: According to you, God is not doing anything in the present. So what period in time are you referring to when you say he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, was correcting as much as he could, high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control, and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created? And are you telling us that during pre-sapiens evolution, all animals – other than those that were eaten – died of old age?
You are correct. I view evolution is over and God is not active biologically: As I've stated several times, during evolution God corrected every mistake He wished to correct. Now we handle the job, as best we can. God has always known the molecules can make mistakes. You are having trouble sorting out the issue. Protein molecules must conform their shapes to provide functions. They are under strict instructions, but can make mistakes. End of story. Since this has all been surprising news to you, but not me, I've not explained it as well as I should have. as for dying, I don't know why you asked that question. It is obvious death is builtin, first to make room for those arriving, but from many other causes, disease, accident, predators, mutational mistakes, etc.
dhw: We are talking about evolution, and you can’t see the contradiction: God “fully recognized his inability to control the molecules”, but he “corrected everything”! How do you correct what you can’t control? […]
Covered above. Shows your continual confusion. As God ran evolution He engineered DNA, and allowed some beneficial mutations and destroyed others.
DAVID: It is completely clear to me. At all times the molecules are free to make rare mistakes in the high speed biochemical reactions of living functions.dhw: According to you, the “rare” mistakes include those deliberately designed to kill through old age, and those that accidentally kill any organism unlucky enough to suffer them before old age, plus those that arise purely by chance and CANNOT be controlled by God although he CAN allow them if beneficial and CAN correct all those that he doesn’t like. Once again. How do you correct something you can’t control and can’t stop?
Still confused. See above answer. You've actually answered yourself as bolded
DAVID: Please note the article on
DNA correction: Sunday, August 02, 2020, 20:40
DAVID: The concept is the molecules are free to make errors always. Now we try to correct errors.DAVID: At all times the molecules are free to make rare mistakes in the high speed biochemical reactions of living functions.
dhw: Yes, at all times, throughout the history of speciation. And whether your God can or can’t control them, one of those “mistakes” may have “arranged for our human evolution”, and you have delivered a powerful blow to your theory that your God directly designed every species.
The only blow is only your continual confusion. If God allowed a DNA mistake because it fit his plans, He is still in full control. And remember all bad mistakes by DNA were removed as I view God's role..
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: […] during evolution, when errors occurred by the molecules, He stepped in and made corrections.
dhw: According to you, God is not doing anything in the present. So what period in time are you referring to when you say he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, was correcting as much as he could, high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control, and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created?
DAVID: You are correct. I view evolution is over and God is not active biologically: As I've stated several times, during evolution God corrected every mistake He wished to correct. Now we handle the job, as best we can. God has always known the molecules can make mistakes. You are having trouble sorting out the issue. Protein molecules must conform their shapes to provide functions. They are under strict instructions, but can make mistakes. End of story. Since this has all been surprising news to you, but not me, I've not explained it as well as I should have.
There is nothing at all surprising in the news that the cellular/molecular system that keeps us alive is riddled with potential and actual mistakes. Anyone who has ever been ill will know that things can go wrong. But you have explicitly told us that during evolution God could not stop or control the errors, and yet he could correct the errors if he wished. THAT is what surprises me. I do not understand how your God could correct errors which he could not stop or control.
dhw: And are you telling us that during pre-sapiens evolution, all animals – other than those that were eaten – died of old age?
DAVID: It is obvious death is builtin, first to make room for those arriving, but from many other causes, disease, accident, predators, mutational mistakes, etc.
That is not quite what you told us. You reminded us on 26 July that “progressive aging to cause death is purposely built in”. So your God deliberately designed all the “errors” that afflict old organisms. If he deliberately designed these, but corrected the other errors, all pre-human animals – apart from those killed by accident or predators – must have died of old age. How could they die from disease or mutational mistakes if he corrected or “destroyed” or “removed” all the bad mistakes (as bolded below)?
dhw: We are talking about evolution, and you can’t see the contradiction: God “fully recognized his inability to control the molecules”, but he “corrected everything”! How do you correct what you can’t control? […]
DAVID: Covered above. Shows your continual confusion. As God ran evolution He engineered DNA, and allowed some beneficial mutations and destroyed others.
It’s not covered at all. He engineered DNA, couldn’t control or stop the errors, and yet could stop the nasty ones by destroying them! If he destroyed them, how do you know they even existed? And if it comes to that, why call the beneficial mutations errors and mistakes? And “allowing” beneficial mutations that caused speciation leads to the inevitable conclusion that he did not design them – hence your next problem.
DAVID: At all times the molecules are free to make rare mistakes in the high speed biochemical reactions of living functions.
dhw: Yes, at all times, throughout the history of speciation. And whether your God can or can’t control them, one of those “mistakes” may have “arranged for our human evolution”, and you have delivered a powerful blow to your theory that your God directly designed every species.
DAVID: The only blow is only your continual confusion. If God allowed a DNA mistake because it fit his plans, He is still in full control. And remember all bad mistakes by DNA were removed as I view God's role. [See above, re the bold.]
Once more, how can he be in full control when you tell us that he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, was correcting as much as he could, high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control, and he can’t stop molecular errors ? I wish you would reconsider your error-strewn theory of errors..
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 05, 2020, 17:41 (1569 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: There is nothing at all surprising in the news that the cellular/molecular system that keeps us alive is riddled with potential and actual mistakes. Anyone who has ever been ill will know that things can go wrong. But you have explicitly told us that during evolution God could not stop or control the errors, and yet he could correct the errors if he wished. THAT is what surprises me. I do not understand how your God could correct errors which he could not stop or control.
Please think through the obvious sequence of events: the DNA makes a mistake that God doesn't like so He corrects it. A mistake He likes He lets go forward. He doesn't control the molecular mistakes, but adapts His response to them. During evolution God is coding DNA and creating evolution
dhw: And are you telling us that during pre-sapiens evolution, all animals – other than those that were eaten – died of old age?DAVID: It is obvious death is builtin, first to make room for those arriving, but from many other causes, disease, accident, predators, mutational mistakes, etc.
dhw: That is not quite what you told us. You reminded us on 26 July that “progressive aging to cause death is purposely built in”. So your God deliberately designed all the “errors” that afflict old organisms. If he deliberately designed these, but corrected the other errors, all pre-human animals – apart from those killed by accident or predators – must have died of old age. How could they die from disease or mutational mistakes if he corrected or “destroyed” or “removed” all the bad mistakes (as bolded below)?
Total confusion. Do you look old? I do, Ageing is builtin to die 'naturally'. Yes there may b e an unidentifiable cause, or you may pass in your sleep, cause unknown. What He corrects is for the living during evolution
DAVID: Covered above. Shows your continual confusion. As God ran evolution He engineered DNA, and allowed some beneficial mutations and destroyed others.
dhw: It’s not covered at all. He engineered DNA, couldn’t control or stop the errors, and yet could stop the nasty ones by destroying them! If he destroyed them, how do you know they even existed? And if it comes to that, why call the beneficial mutations errors and mistakes? And “allowing” beneficial mutations that caused speciation leads to the inevitable conclusion that he did not design them – hence your next problem.
DAVID: At all times the molecules are free to make rare mistakes in the high speed biochemical reactions of living functions.
dhw: Yes, at all times, throughout the history of speciation. And whether your God can or can’t control them, one of those “mistakes” may have “arranged for our human evolution”, and you have delivered a powerful blow to your theory that your God directly designed every species.
DAVID: The only blow is only your continual confusion. If God allowed a DNA mistake because it fit his plans, He is still in full control. And remember all bad mistakes by DNA were removed as I view God's role. [See above, re the bold.]
dhw: Once more, how can he be in full control when you tell us that he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, was correcting as much as he could, high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control, and he can’t stop molecular errors ? I wish you would reconsider your error-strewn theory of errors.
You still cannot understand molecules are free to make mistakes, even if guided by instructions. God cannot ride herd on every molecule while it is in action in processes. I don't believe in the human Bible description that God can be in total control of everything down to the last living molecule in action.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: There is nothing at all surprising in the news that the cellular/molecular system that keeps us alive is riddled with potential and actual mistakes. Anyone who has ever been ill will know that things can go wrong. But you have explicitly told us that during evolution God could not stop or control the errors, and yet he could correct the errors if he wished. THAT is what surprises me. I do not understand how your God could correct errors which he could not stop or control.
DAVID: Please think through the obvious sequence of events: the DNA makes a mistake that God doesn't like so He corrects it. A mistake He likes He lets go forward. He doesn't control the molecular mistakes, but adapts His response to them. During evolution God is coding DNA and creating evolution.
But you keep telling us that he couldn’t stop or control the mistakes. If you can’t control them, how can you correct them? You are making it sound as if nothing now exists except beneficial errors! Or are you telling us that during evolution he liked nasty errors as well as nice ones, so he let them go forward too? In that case, if he had the ability to correct them but didn’t, he is responsible for their current existence.
dhw: And are you telling us that during pre-sapiens evolution, all animals – other than those that were eaten – died of old age?
DAVID: It is obvious death is builtin, first to make room for those arriving, but from many other causes, disease, accident, predators, mutational mistakes, etc.
dhw: That is not quite what you told us. You reminded us on 26 July that “progressive aging to cause death is purposely built in”. So your God deliberately designed all the “errors” that afflict old organisms. If he deliberately designed these, but corrected the other errors, all pre-human animals – apart from those killed by accident or predators – must have died of old age. How could they die from disease or mutational mistakes if he corrected or “destroyed” or “removed” all the bad mistakes?
DAVID: Total confusion. Do you look old? I do, Ageing is builtin to die 'naturally'. Yes there may b e an unidentifiable cause, or you may pass in your sleep, cause unknown. What He corrects is for the living during evolution.
Of course we age. And you have told us that death by old age was deliberately designed, whereas death by any other mutational change was accidental and random. So again: he must have “allowed” all those nasty mutational changes to survive although according to you he could have corrected them (although also according to you, he couldn’t control them). Total confusion indeed.
DAVID: The only blow is only your continual confusion. If God allowed a DNA mistake because it fit his plans, He is still in full control. And remember all bad mistakes by DNA were removed as I view God's role.
dhw: Once more, how can he be in full control when you tell us that he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, was correcting as much as he could, high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control, and he can’t stop molecular errors ? I wish you would reconsider your error-strewn theory of errors.
DAVID: You still cannot understand molecules are free to make mistakes, even if guided by instructions. God cannot ride herd on every molecule while it is in action in processes. I don't believe in the human Bible description that God can be in total control of everything down to the last living molecule in action.
I understand perfectly that molecules are free to make mistakes. For years now I have been proposing that cells in general are free not only to make mistakes but also to make the beneficial changes which for some reason you also regard as mistakes. Meanwhile, you have just told us (bolded above) that “He is still in full control”, but you don’t believe he can be “in total control”. Your theory is full of contradictions.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, August 06, 2020, 18:57 (1568 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Please think through the obvious sequence of events: the DNA makes a mistake that God doesn't like so He corrects it. A mistake He likes He lets go forward. He doesn't control the molecular mistakes, but adapts His response to them. During evolution God is coding DNA and creating evolution.
dhw: But you keep telling us that he couldn’t stop or control the mistakes. If you can’t control them, how can you correct them? You are making it sound as if nothing now exists except beneficial errors! Or are you telling us that during evolution he liked nasty errors as well as nice ones, so he let them go forward too? In that case, if he had the ability to correct them but didn’t, he is responsible for their current existence.
We are discussing God actions during evolution, not now. At that time of species production He was coding DNA/the whole genome actively. The DNA/genome then ran the species' living biochemical mechanisms and DNA was free to make unintended mistakes in reproduction. Since God was actively coding, of course He could step in and correct unintended changes. I don't know where the question about 'nasty' comes from except your strange confusion about all this subject. Simply, as stated many time before, God allowed mistakes that fit his purpose. If nasty fit His purpose, then they also were allowed to survive.
DAVID: Total confusion. Do you look old? I do, Ageing is builtin to die 'naturally'. Yes there may b e an unidentifiable cause, or you may pass in your sleep, cause unknown. What He corrects is for the living during evolution.dhw: Of course we age. And you have told us that death by old age was deliberately designed, whereas death by any other mutational change was accidental and random. So again: he must have “allowed” all those nasty mutational changes to survive although according to you he could have corrected them (although also according to you, he couldn’t control them). Total confusion indeed.
Note the bold. Most mutations affect future progeny. Talk about who is confused. Most organisms age and die because aging is purposely built in.
dhw: Once more, how can he be in full control when you tell us that he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, was correcting as much as he could, high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control, and he can’t stop molecular errors ? I wish you would reconsider your error-strewn theory of errors.DAVID: You still cannot understand molecules are free to make mistakes, even if guided by instructions. God cannot ride herd on every molecule while it is in action in processes. I don't believe in the human Bible description that God can be in total control of everything down to the last living molecule in action.
dhw: I understand perfectly that molecules are free to make mistakes. For years now I have been proposing that cells in general are free not only to make mistakes but also to make the beneficial changes which for some reason you also regard as mistakes. Meanwhile, you have just told us (bolded above) that “He is still in full control”, but you don’t believe he can be “in total control”. Your theory is full of contradictions.
Your thinking is filled with contradictions. The bold indicates you have some appreciation of the facts about molecular mistakes. Currently God does not make corrections, we are delegated to do so. I accept and have always known God has certain limits in control over high speed molecular reactions. I still view Him as all-powerful.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
Two of our threads keep overlapping, which has resulted in a great deal of repetition. I tried to condense the arguments yesterday, and it may help us to avoid the repetitions if we use that summary as a starting-point here, but I will edit it and add to it. I will then repeat one of your answers, and I hope this will enable us to proceed more systematically.
dhw: Living biochemistry tells us that the current biological system is riddled with “errors”, because so many things can go wrong. We know that SOME of these errors can sometimes be corrected by the cells themselves, and sometimes by human intervention. You have told us that God has played no part in the process since sapiens became established. In the course of evolution, you tell us that your God had no control over the mistakes, but let some through and destroyed the others.
1) So how do you know about the ones he destroyed? You claim that God designed the errors leading to old age and death by old age, but those that afflicted the young were random and out of his control. Such errors still exist, so what sort of errors do you think he removed?
2) How could he have destroyed/corrected/removed them if he could not stop or control them?
3) I don’t really know how you can tell the difference between God allowing a mutational error to arrange for our human evolution and natural selection doing the same. Nor could you when you wrote that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”.
4) And finally, if God “allowed” beneficial mutations, he did not design them. Therefore evolution has proceeded through the survival of random but beneficial mutations and not through direct design. That makes you a Darwinist.
Here is one of your answers:
DAVID: Note the bold. I've specifically said God had total control over changing errors in DNA during evolution. I am no Darwinist, as you are still very confused.
You’ve specifically said that God had no control over mutational errors (I've quoted you several times in previous posts), and you’ve specifically said that God had total control over changing errors, and you see no contradiction in your argument. You have specifically said that your God “allowed” beneficial errors to survive, and these were random, which means he did not design them. One of these may even have arranged for our human evolution. In case you’ve forgotten, Darwin’s theory was also that random mutations caused evolutionary change. You are still very confused. Either your God designed the mutations that led to speciation or he allowed them. Which is it?
The contradictions here and on the other thread are so blatant that I really do wish you would reconsider this "errors" theory of yours.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, August 07, 2020, 18:18 (1567 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Living biochemistry tells us that the current biological system is riddled with “errors”, because so many things can go wrong. We know that SOME of these errors can sometimes be corrected by the cells themselves, and sometimes by human intervention. You have told us that God has played no part in the process since sapiens became established. In the course of evolution, you tell us that your God had no control over the mistakes, but let some through and destroyed the others.
1) So how do you know about the ones he destroyed? You claim that God designed the errors leading to old age and death by old age, but those that afflicted the young were random and out of his control. Such errors still exist, so what sort of errors do you think he removed?
2) How could he have destroyed/corrected/removed them if he could not stop or control them?
3) I don’t really know how you can tell the difference between God allowing a mutational error to arrange for our human evolution and natural selection doing the same. Nor could you when you wrote that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”.
4) And finally, if God “allowed” beneficial mutations, he did not design them. Therefore evolution has proceeded through the survival of random but beneficial mutations and not through direct design. That makes you a Darwinist.
Note the bold in your first paragraph.It is absolutely false in my theory. Without picking apart your error filled prose I again tell you what I think about God during evolution.I am using what we know about current errors applied to how God handled DNA during evolution 1) God recognizes, as we do, molecules make errors, as shown by the corrective systems in place. 2) if God can destroy DNA molecular errors He doesn't want and keep others that help His purposes, He is in full control, after the fact of error. 3) this is not Darwinism chance mutations arriving under no control. God is completely controlling what goes forward in evolution, no matter how it appeared. Can't you see God doesn't need to design what He likes even if it a chance arrival? 4) as a result I see God designing 99.99% of all evolutionary DNA. If God codes DNA He can keep or destroy whatever He wants to do.
I wiped put the rest of your discussion as a repetitive error filled understanding of my view of God handling evolutionary DNA all based on today's facts. But the fact still remains protein molecules, even under strict orders, make mistakes. And you know that. What happens next is what is important to think about. I told you what I propose is how God reacts.
David's theory of evolution:God's error corrections, cancer
by David Turell , Friday, August 07, 2020, 21:47 (1567 days ago) @ David Turell
The article shows cancer has always been around; this example from a dinosaur:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/doctors-diagnose-advanced-cancer-dinosaur?utm_s...
"This deformed bone is the first clear example of a malignant tumor diagnosed in a dinosaur. The partial fibula—a bone from the lower leg—belonged to a horned, plant-eating Centrosaurus that lived roughly 76 million years ago in what is now Dinosaur Park in southern Alberta in Canada.
***
"This isn’t the first time cancer has been found in fossil remains. Scientists have identified benign tumors in Tyrannosaurus rex fossils and arthritis in duck-billed hadrosaurs, as well as an osteosarcoma in a 240-million-year-old turtle. But the researchers say their study is the first to confirm a dinosaur cancer diagnosis at the cellular level."
Comment: cancers occur from copy errors in dividing cells. They have been around a long time. This is something God could not stop as He coded DNA for evolution. Our DNA does carry cancer related genes, like BRCA related to increasing the chances of cancer of breasts and ovary, which probably developed somewhere along the way as sapiens developed.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: Living biochemistry tells us that the current biological system is riddled with “errors”, because so many things can go wrong. We know that SOME of these errors can sometimes be corrected by the cells themselves, and sometimes by human intervention. You have told us that God has played no part in the process since sapiens became established. In the course of evolution, you tell us that your God had no control over the mistakes, but let some through and destroyed the others.
DAVID: Note the bold in your first paragraph. It is absolutely false in my theory.
I’m sorry, but if it is absolutely false, please explain what you mean by such statements as: “If he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, then they are not his fault”; “He was correcting as much as he could”; “…high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control”; “I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system He created”. You have also given us a concrete past and present example of an uncontrollable error:
DAVID: The article shows cancer has always been around; this example from a dinosaur:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/doctors-diagnose-advanced-cancer-dinosaur?utm_s...
DAVID: cancers occur from copy errors in dividing cells. They have been around a long time. This is something God could not stop as He coded DNA for evolution.
But according to you he could destroy any errors he didn’t like. So not only could he not stop the cancer error (although he is apparently in full control), but he must have liked it too.
DAVID: Without picking apart your error filled prose I again tell you what I think about God during evolution. I am using what we know about current errors applied to how God handled DNA during evolution 1) God recognizes, as we do, molecules make errors, as shown by the corrective systems in place. 2) if God can destroy DNA molecular errors He doesn't want and keep others that help His purposes, He is in full control, after the fact of error.
1) Still with my theist hat on, I’m sure he would recognize the so-called errors. since he designed the system that produced them. 2) What pre-sapiens errors are you talking about? If he destroyed them before we arrived, how do you know about them? And why did you say He was correcting as much as He could? That means there were some he couldn’t correct, so he was not “in full control after the fact of error”. The cancer example illustrates the confusion.
DAVID: 3) this is not Darwinism chance mutations arriving under no control. God is completely controlling what goes forward in evolution, no matter how it appeared. Can't you see God doesn't need to design what He likes even if it a chance arrival?
Then there is no difference between what God does (he selects the chance mutations he regards as favourable) and natural selection (Nature selects the chance mutations that are favourable). This is totally different from your previous theory that your God directly designed every species (not to mention lifestyles and natural wonders).
DAVID: 4) as a result I see God designing 99.99% of all evolutionary DNA. If God codes DNA He can keep or destroy whatever He wants to do.
If God exists, then he designed 100% of the system that generates life, reproduction and evolution. The system contains errors. You tell us that those errors “are not his fault” but he “allows” the beneficial ones to survive. That does not = he directly designed every species. (You say that even humans may have evolved from a "mutational error".)
DAVID: I wiped out the rest of your discussion as a repetitive error filled understanding of my view of God handling evolutionary DNA all based on today's facts.
You have also failed to respond to the following contradiction from the other post: “I accept and have always known God has certain limits in control over high speed molecular reactions. I still view Him as all-powerful.” A God who has certain limits in control is not in total control and is not all-powerful. Previously you wrote: “I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” One moment you proudly announce that he is not all-powerful, and the next moment you still view him as all-powerful.
DAVID: But the fact still remains protein molecules, even under strict orders, make mistakes. And you know that. What happens next is what is important to think about. I told you what I propose is how God reacts.
Yes, I know that protein molecules and the rest of the life-giving system make what you call mistakes. And I have proposed that your God created precisely the system that he wanted to create, including the “mistakes”: namely a system in which cells (I prefer to broaden the focus) are free to do what they want to do. Hence the vast and ever changing bush of life. At the very least, this theory restores God’s almighty powers which in one of the above quotes you so proudly stripped him of!
Once more: please reconsider this theory which makes your God all-powerful but not all-powerful, in total control but not in total control, and directly designing all species but actually only "allowing" random beneficial mutations to survive.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, August 08, 2020, 19:11 (1566 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I please explain what you mean by such statements as: “If he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, then they are not his fault”; “He was correcting as much as he could”; “…high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control”; “I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system He created”.
You totally lack understanding of what I am presenting. The mishmash of my statements shows that. We are discussing molecular errors in two different time frames. During evolution God is in total control of coding DNA so it is simple to see He can leave beneficial chance mutations and remove bad ones to fit His program. During life at the present time molecular errors occur and we try and help the problems created. Pay attention to the time frames.
.dhw: You have also given us a concrete past and present example of an uncontrollable error:
DAVID: The article shows cancer has always been around; this example from a dinosaur:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/doctors-diagnose-advanced-cancer-dinosaur?utm_s...
DAVID: cancers occur from copy errors in dividing cells. They have been around a long time. This is something God could not stop as He coded DNA for evolution.dhw: But according to you he could destroy any errors he didn’t like. So not only could he not stop the cancer error (although he is apparently in full control), but he must have liked it too.
The dinosaur cancer was due to cellular molecular error, just as errors occur now. It had n nothing to do with the course of evolution. God would not have paid attention to it as it didn't change the course of evolution. You are still confused about how I see God's actions.
DAVID: 3) this is not Darwinism chance mutations arriving under no control.
God is choosing a chance mutation if it suits His coding purpose.
DAVID: But the fact still remains protein molecules, even under strict orders, make mistakes. And you know that. What happens next is what is important to think about. I told you what I propose is how God reacts.dhw: Yes, I know that protein molecules and the rest of the life-giving system make what you call mistakes. And I have proposed that your God created precisely the system that he wanted to create, including the “mistakes”: namely a system in which cells (I prefer to broaden the focus) are free to do what they want to do. Hence the vast and ever changing bush of life. At the very least, this theory restores God’s almighty powers which in one of the above quotes you so proudly stripped him of!
Once more: please reconsider this theory which makes your God all-powerful but not all-powerful, in total control but not in total control, and directly designing all species but actually only "allowing" random beneficial mutations to survive.
Totally wrong as explained. DNA working on its own, after it is coded, is simply a molecule that can make mistakes. Cell splitting goes on constantly, and we see very careful back up system created by God since it is obvious He recognized the error potential. Error at the cellular level cause mutations and cancers. As in the dinosaur.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: …please explain what you mean by such statements as: “If he couldn’t stop the molecular errors, then they are not his fault”; “He was correcting as much as he could”; “…high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control”; “I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system He created”.
DAVID: You totally lack understanding of what I am presenting. The mishmash of my statements shows that. We are discussing molecular errors in two different time frames. During evolution God is in total control of coding DNA so it is simple to see He can leave beneficial chance mutations and remove bad ones to fit His program. During life at the present time molecular errors occur and we try and help the problems created. Pay attention to the time frames.
You have told us that during life at the present time, he does nothing at all. All your previous, bolded remarks above therefore apply to what he could and could not do during evolution. Once again: How can a God who could not control or stop the errors have been in total control?
dhw: You have also given us a concrete past and present example of an uncontrollable error:
DAVID: The article shows cancer has always been around; this example from a dinosaur:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/doctors-diagnose-advanced-cancer-dinosaur?utm_s...
DAVID: cancers occur from copy errors in dividing cells. They have been around a long time. This is something God could not stop as He coded DNA for evolution.
dhw: But according to you he could destroy any errors he didn’t like. So not only could he not stop the cancer error (although he is apparently in full control), but he must have liked it too.
DAVID: The dinosaur cancer was due to cellular molecular error, just as errors occur now. It had nothing to do with the course of evolution. God would not have paid attention to it as it didn't change the course of evolution. You are still confused about how I see God's actions.
You said it was an error he could not stop. Of course the cellular errors that cause cancer did not change the course of evolution, but cellular errors INCLUDE the problems you say we try to solve now, such as cancer, which also afflicted organisms during evolution. You even claim that he left us backups to help us control the errors he could not stop or control. This part of our disagreement concerns your insistence that a God who could not control the errors in the system he created was in total control of the errors in the system he created.
As for your reference to his leaving (your usual word is “allowing”) beneficial mutations to “fit his program”, this referred to evolution, and it means evolution by selection from random mutations and not by direct design, although you have always maintained that speciation (as well as all the natural wonders etc.) was by direct design.
DAVID: 3) this is not Darwinism chance mutations arriving under no control.
And
DAVID: God is choosing a chance mutation if it suits His coding purpose.
You have left out my response. Once again: God selecting a chance mutation is no different from natural selection selecting a chance mutation. Both of them attribute evolution to selected chance mutations and not direct design, which has hitherto been your explanation for speciation.
dhw: I know that protein molecules and the rest of the life-giving system make what you call mistakes. And I have proposed that your God created precisely the system that he wanted to create, including the “mistakes”: namely a system in which cells (I prefer to broaden the focus) are free to do what they want to do. Hence the vast and ever changing bush of life. At the very least, this theory restores God’s almighty powers which in one of the above quotes you so proudly stripped him of!
Once more: please reconsider this theory which makes your God all-powerful but not all-powerful, in total control but not in total control, and directly designing all species but actually only "allowing" random beneficial mutations to survive.
DAVID: Totally wrong as explained. DNA working on its own, after it is coded, is simply a molecule that can make mistakes. Cell splitting goes on constantly, and we see very careful back up system created by God since it is obvious He recognized the error potential. Error at the cellular level cause mutations and cancers. As in the dinosaur.
The mutations include those that lead to speciation, and indeed according to you: “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.” And why do you continually try to gloss over the blatant contradictions I have just pointed out? Please reconsider this theory.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Sunday, August 09, 2020, 18:48 (1565 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You have told us that during life at the present time, he does nothing at all. All your previous, bolded remarks above therefore apply to what he could and could not do during evolution. Once again: How can a God who could not control or stop the errors have been in total control?
Use your imagination. I have God is charge of coding the advances in evolution. He creates the DNA code. We know that DNA can make replication copy errors. Therefore God is watching for those errors. If it is a bad mutation, as most are , He deletes it. If it happens to be beneficial for the advancing evolutionary code He wants, He keeps it. How is that not total control of the final DNA output? As you type a story you may make mistakes and correct them. The final output is obviously fully your work under your total control..
DAVID: The dinosaur cancer was due to cellular molecular error, just as errors occur now. It had nothing to do with the course of evolution. God would not have paid attention to it as it didn't change the course of evolution. You are still confused about how I see God's actions.dhw: You said it was an error he could not stop. Of course the cellular errors that cause cancer did not change the course of evolution, but cellular errors INCLUDE the problems you say we try to solve now, such as cancer, which also afflicted organisms during evolution. You even claim that he left us backups to help us control the errors he could not stop or control. This part of our disagreement concerns your insistence that a God who could not control the errors in the system he created was in total control of the errors in the system he created.
Explained above. I have explained my view of God's role during evolution, correcting DNA errors. The time today is a different situation totally. That is my point, and you continuously try to conflate the two different time periods and confuse your thinking.
dhw: I know that protein molecules and the rest of the life-giving system make what you call mistakes. And I have proposed that your God created precisely the system that he wanted to create, including the “mistakes”: namely a system in which cells (I prefer to broaden the focus) are free to do what they want to do. Hence the vast and ever changing bush of life. At the very least, this theory restores God’s almighty powers which in one of the above quotes you so proudly stripped him of!Once more: please reconsider this theory which makes your God all-powerful but not all-powerful, in total control but not in total control, and directly designing all species but actually only "allowing" random beneficial mutations to survive.
DAVID: Totally wrong as explained. DNA working on its own, after it is coded, is simply a molecule that can make mistakes. Cell splitting goes on constantly, and we see very careful back up system created by God since it is obvious He recognized the error potential. Error at the cellular level cause mutations and cancers. As in the dinosaur.
dhw: The mutations include those that lead to speciation, and indeed according to you: “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.” And why do you continually try to gloss over the blatant contradictions I have just pointed out? Please reconsider this theory.
If you will carefully read my theory about God's control over evolutionary DNA coding, you will see He is in full control over the final output. And remember God knows molecules will make mistakes, the reason for the careful backup editing systems in place. I have used the facts we know. I thank you for trying to find errors in my logic. There is none and no reason to reconsider
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: You have told us that during life at the present time, he does nothing at all. All your previous, bolded remarks above therefore apply to what he could and could not do during evolution. Once again: How can a God who could not control or stop the errors have been in total control?
DAVID: Use your imagination. I have God is charge of coding the advances in evolution. He creates the DNA code. We know that DNA can make replication copy errors. Therefore God is watching for those errors. If it is a bad mutation, as most are , He deletes it. If it happens to be beneficial for the advancing evolutionary code He wants, He keeps it. How is that not total control of the final DNA output? As you type a story you may make mistakes and correct them. The final output is obviously fully your work under your total control.
1) The errors in the system are/were not confined to those which did or didn't advance evolution! According to the above scenario, the “final DNA output” should have been perfect, since he deleted the bad mutations. But even during pre-sapiens evolution, according to you “He was correcting as much as he could”, and surprise, surprise, the DNA system is STILL making mistakes, some of which are the SAME as in pre-sapiens times (e.g. cancer). And you are the one “willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” Yet again: If he can’t stop them, and if he can’t correct all of them (he only corrected “as much as he could”) how can he be in total control? Your analogy clearly indicates your confusion: my mistakes as an author are my fault, but according to you, “if He couldn’t stop the molecular faults, then they are not his fault.” In both cases, if the “final output” is still full of errors – whose fault is it?
dhw: This part of our disagreement concerns your insistence that a God who could not control the errors in the system he created was in total control of the errors in the system he created.
DAVID: Explained above. I have explained my view of God's role during evolution, correcting DNA errors. The time today is a different situation totally. That is my point, and you continuously try to conflate the two different time periods and confuse your thinking.
The “different situation totally” is that the system continues to be full of errors, but your God apparently is no longer trying to correct or control them,though he did leave backups, some of which work and some of which don’t. If his only concern then was evolution, why did he leave backups for the non-evolutionary blunders (though he himself couldn't correct them)? In fact, you say he has left it to us to try and correct the errors he could not stop or control. How does this support your argument that he was in total control and corrected the bad mutations?
2) You have totally ignored the astonishing reversal of your own theory of evolution, which is/was that your God directly designed every species. You now have every species being the result of random mutations which your God “allows” to survive – which is exactly the same process as Darwin’s natural selection.
dhw: The mutations include those that lead to speciation, and indeed according to you: “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.” And why do you continually try to gloss over the blatant contradictions I have just pointed out? Please reconsider this theory.
DAVID: If you will carefully read my theory about God's control over evolutionary DNA coding, you will see He is in full control over the final output. And remember God knows molecules will make mistakes, the reason for the careful backup editing systems in place. I have used the facts we know. I thank you for trying to find errors in my logic. There is none and no reason to reconsider.
The “final output” is still riddled with errors! Here are the two basic sets of contradictions:
1) He directly designed all species (old theory), but he selected the beneficial random mutations that led to speciation (new theory). Which is it?
2) You have also told us he is all-powerful and you have told he is not all-powerful; he is in total control but he is not in total control.
There is clearly something wrong somewhere. Please don’t just repeat your new theory, because then I shall have to repeat the different contradictory quotes. I just wish you would reconsider it, since it can only lead to more and more contradictions like your author analogy.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, August 10, 2020, 14:52 (1564 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Use your imagination. I have God is charge of coding the advances in evolution. He creates the DNA code. We know that DNA can make replication copy errors. Therefore God is watching for those errors. If it is a bad mutation, as most are , He deletes it. If it happens to be beneficial for the advancing evolutionary code He wants, He keeps it. How is that not total control of the final DNA output? As you type a story you may make mistakes and correct them. The final output is obviously fully your work under your total control.
dhw: 1) The errors in the system are/were not confined to those which did or didn't advance evolution! According to the above scenario, the “final DNA output” should have been perfect, since he deleted the bad mutations. But even during pre-sapiens evolution, according to you “He was correcting as much as he could”, and surprise, surprise, the DNA system is STILL making mistakes, some of which are the SAME as in pre-sapiens times (e.g. cancer).
You are still are time confused. It is quite clear to me under my theory of God in control of evolution, that He accepted good DNA mistakes and voided the bad ones during evolution. As the final arbiter over the DNA code, He is really in full control of the final result. The key thought, which you keep confusing is DNA as a molecule can always make mistakes and will during evolution and now in a different time period. In the bold, your 'STILL' to accept my point of view should be changed to 'ALWAYS'.
dhw: Your analogy clearly indicates your confusion: my mistakes as an author are my fault, but according to you, “if He couldn’t stop the molecular faults, then they are not his fault.” In both cases, if the “final output” is still full of errors – whose fault is it?
You are not thinking with clarity. You never presented an error-ridden manuscript to a publisher. You corrected all your errors. God accepted some errors as correct and deleted others during the process of evolution producing the humans/sapiens He wanted from the DNA code He wanted and designed and allowed..
dhw: The “different situation totally” is that the system continues to be full of errors... If his only concern then was evolution, why did he leave backups for the non-evolutionary blunders (though he himself couldn't correct them)? In fact, you say he has left it to us to try and correct the errors he could not stop or control. How does this support your argument that he was in total control and corrected the bad mutations?
Again you are mistakenly trying to combine two periods of time. In evolution God corrected everything and we appeared. The backup systems indicate He expected errors after evolution.
dhw: The “final output” is still riddled with errors! Here are the two basic sets of contradictions:
1) He directly designed all species (old theory), but he selected the beneficial random mutations that led to speciation (new theory). Which is it?
Both!!!!!
dhw: 2) You have also told us he is all-powerful and you have told he is not all-powerful; he is in total control but he is not in total control.
He made all final editorial decisions about evolutionary DNA. Total control!!!
dhw: There is clearly something wrong somewhere. Please don’t just repeat your new theory, because then I shall have to repeat the different contradictory quotes. I just wish you would reconsider it, since it can only lead to more and more contradictions like your author analogy.
The only contradictions are in your head. Your friend, David, has always known about DNA errors, as well as errors by any and all biochemical molecules. It is a fact of the system God created all those molecules are subject to strict instructions and backup systems. But they still make errors. I knew you would be startled when I introduced this subject, but I knew I had to broaden your knowledge. You and I are both having copy errors right now without noticing. Our cells are constantly dividing but the image in the mirror doesn't change. Why? Most of the errors are corrected, as designed, and we live on, unaware, as God planned.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: If it is a bad mutation, as most are , He deletes it. If it happens to be beneficial for the advancing evolutionary code He wants, He keeps it. How is that not total control of the final DNA output? As you type a story you may make mistakes and correct them. The final output is obviously fully your work under your total control.
dhw: 1) The errors in the system are/were not confined to those which did or didn't advance evolution! According to the above scenario, the “final DNA output” should have been perfect, since he deleted the bad mutations. But even during pre-sapiens evolution, according to you “He was correcting as much as he could”, and surprise, surprise, the DNA system is STILL making mistakes, some of which are the SAME as in pre-sapiens times (e.g. cancer).
DAVID: You are still time confused. It is quite clear to me under my theory of God in control of evolution, that He accepted good DNA mistakes and voided the bad ones during evolution.
During pre-sapiens evolution, how do you know about the bad ones he voided? And he “was correcting as much as he could” means there were some he could not correct.
DAVID: As the final arbiter over the DNA code, He is really in full control of the final result. The key thought, which you keep confusing is DNA as a molecule can always make mistakes and will during evolution and now in a different time period. In the bold, your 'STILL' to accept my point of view should be changed to 'ALWAYS'.
So the “final result” is a system which always has made and always will make mistakes! And according to you, he could not stop or control these mistakes, and yet he is in full control. And although he designed the system, the mistakes were/are not his fault.
dhw:[…] my mistakes as an author are my fault, but according to you, “if He couldn’t stop the molecular faults, then they are not his fault.” In both cases, if the “final output” is still full of errors – whose fault is it?
DAVID: You are not thinking with clarity. You never presented an error-ridden manuscript to a publisher. You corrected all your errors.
The mistakes are my fault, and uncorrected mistakes in my manuscript (even authors can miss mistakes), are also my fault!
DAVID: In evolution God corrected everything and we appeared. […]
How could he have “corrected everything”, when in your own words there are ALWAYS mistakes? Mistakes were not confined to those concerning evolution! Even dinosaurs died of cancer.
dhw: Here are the two basic sets of contradictions:
1) He directly designed all species (old theory), but he selected the beneficial random mutations that led to speciation (new theory). Which is it?
DAVID: Both!!!!!
I like it! If God exists, he left it to chance (Darwin) - we must forget intelligent cells (Shapiro) - to produce beneficial mutations, but he also preprogrammed or dabbled (directly designed) some mutations. I wonder which ones, since he can't stop or control his directly designed system from producing the errors and only "allowed" the good ones. It's a lovely mishmash of theories, but of course it wrecks your original theory that he started out with the sole purpose of designing H. sapiens, and directly designed millions of now extinct non-human life forms etc. “as part of the goal of evolving (= directly designing) humans” - though even human evolution may have been “arranged” by a non-designed mutational error.
dhw: 2) You have also told us he is all-powerful and you have told he is not all-powerful; he is in total control but he is not in total control.
DAVID: He made all final editorial decisions about evolutionary DNA. Total control!!!
Total control of what? DNA then and now was and is ALWAYS full of mistakes, and in your own words, even during pre-sapiens evolution he “was correcting as much as he could,” and you are “the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.”
dhw: I just wish you would reconsider it, since it can only lead to more and more contradictions like your author analogy.
DAVID:The only contradictions are in your head. Your friend, David, has always known about DNA errors, as well as errors by any and all biochemical molecules. It is a fact of the system God created all those molecules are subject to strict instructions and backup systems. But they still make errors. I knew you would be startled when I introduced this subject, but I knew I had to broaden your knowledge. […]
I think most people, including even me, are aware that when something goes wrong with their bodies, something has gone wrong with their bodies. I am only startled by such arguments as God – if he exists – has created a system that always makes mistakes which he can’t control, although he is in total control, and he corrected ALL the errors although he only corrected as many as he could, and he left backup systems which sometimes work and sometimes don’t, although he couldn’t correct those mistakes himself, and he’s like an author correcting his mistakes, except that unlike the author it’s not his fault if there are mistakes to correct, and God is all-powerful and all-knowing except when he is not all-powerful and all-knowing.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 11, 2020, 20:08 (1563 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As the final arbiter over the DNA code, He is really in full control of the final result. The key thought, which you keep confusing is DNA as a molecule can always make mistakes and will during evolution and now in a different time period.
dhw: So the “final result” is a system which always has made and always will make mistakes! And according to you, he could not stop or control these mistakes, and yet he is in full control. And although he designed the system, the mistakes were/are not his fault.
You are not thinking clearly. You agree molecules can make mistakes when in action. Again there are two time periods. During evolution a DNA mistake can change the course of evolution, and since God is in charge (in my view) of coding all DNA evolutionary advances (speciation), He corrects every error going off course. In our current time period He is not correcting as I view evolution as completed. Now we are responsible for corrections. All of this is logical and fits My theory.
DAVID:The only contradictions are in your head. Your friend, David, has always known about DNA errors, as well as errors by any and all biochemical molecules. It is a fact of the system God created all those molecules are subject to strict instructions and backup systems. But they still make errors. I knew you would be startled when I introduced this subject, but I knew I had to broaden your knowledge. […]dhw: I think most people, including even me, are aware that when something goes wrong with their bodies, something has gone wrong with their bodies. I am only startled by such arguments as God – if he exists – has created a system that always makes mistakes which he can’t control, although he is in total control, and he corrected ALL the errors although he only corrected as many as he could, and he left backup systems which sometimes work and sometimes don’t, although he couldn’t correct those mistakes himself, and he’s like an author correcting his mistakes, except that unlike the author it’s not his fault if there are mistakes to correct, and God is all-powerful and all-knowing except when he is not all-powerful and all-knowing.
I'll stick by my clear explanation above. You confusion is complete because you constantly
conflate God during evolution as He coded DNA to advance the complexity of organisms and the errors in DNA and other molecules today, when evolution is over and we are in charge. God did the best He could in giving us the tight editing controls we see in cellular reproduction. I'm sure you have no idea how the chromosomes rearrange themselves and split apart to make two new cells with twin (hopefully) DNA's. Read up on the process of mitosis, the complexity of the multiple molecular actions that help chromosomes split properly. Your eyes will roll back in your head and you will finally leave the concept of chance evolution completely. What I saw in my microscope as a med student looked so simple. With current research the complexity of how it is really accomplished is spectacular. And it is protected by an amazing editing system to throw out junk that might appear. And that happens all the time. In my view God recognized the problems quite clearly by putting in the editing. The editing is required from the beginning of cellular reproduction at the origin of life. without the editing we would not be here. Only a designer fits. This is why the OOL research is so shortsighted. Just inventing a reproducing code is a slight part of the overall problem which has to protect against the DNA errors and also the errors created by the multiple interlocking molecular reactions that create living organisms.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: As the final arbiter over the DNA code, He is really in full control of the final result. The key thought, which you keep confusing is DNA as a molecule can always make mistakes and will during evolution and now in a different time period.
dhw: So the “final result” is a system which always has made and always will make mistakes! And according to you, he could not stop or control these mistakes, and yet he is in full control. And although he designed the system, the mistakes were/are not his fault.
DAVID: You are not thinking clearly. You agree molecules can make mistakes when in action. Again there are two time periods. During evolution a DNA mistake can change the course of evolution, and since God is in charge (in my view) of coding all DNA evolutionary advances (speciation), He corrects every error going off course. In our current time period He is not correcting as I view evolution as completed. Now we are responsible for corrections. All of this is logical and fits My theory.
Why are you confining pre-sapiens “errors” to those that influence the course of evolution? Do you think disease only started with sapiens? You yourself gave us the example of dinosaurs dying of cancer. These are the errors we deal with now. It makes no difference to the argument! You have stated over and over again that your God could not stop or control the errors in pre-sapiens time, but corrected “as much as he could”. So much for total control. As for evolution, your new theory is that it was caused by random mutations (“errors”), and the beneficial ones were selected by God (Darwin says they were selected by Nature). This is the opposite of your previous theory that your God directly designed every species.
DAVID:The only contradictions are in your head. Your friend, David, has always known about DNA errors, as well as errors by any and all biochemical molecules. It is a fact of the system God created all those molecules are subject to strict instructions and backup systems. But they still make errors. I knew you would be startled when I introduced this subject, but I knew I had to broaden your knowledge. […]
dhw: I think most people, including even me, are aware that when something goes wrong with their bodies, something has gone wrong with their bodies. I am only startled by such arguments as God – if he exists – has created a system that always makes mistakes which he can’t control, although he is in total control, and he corrected ALL the errors although he only corrected as many as he could, and he left backup systems which sometimes work and sometimes don’t, although he couldn’t correct those mistakes himself, and he’s like an author correcting his mistakes, except that unlike the author it’s not his fault if there are mistakes to correct, and God is all-powerful and all-knowing except when he is not all-powerful and all-knowing.
DAVID: I'll stick by my clear explanation above. You confusion is complete because you constantly conflate God during evolution as He coded DNA to advance the complexity of organisms and the errors in DNA and other molecules today, when evolution is over and we are in charge. God did the best He could in giving us the tight editing controls we see in cellular reproduction.
Again you are confining pre-sapiens errors to those that affected the course of evolution. The same system also led to disease in pre-sapiens times, and those are the kind of errors we are still trying to correct today. Yes, I am confused. I don’t understand how he can be in total control of random errors which he can’t stop or control (your words, not mine). Are you saying he could control errors relating to evolution but not errors relating to disease? Why not? If he could destroy those not beneficial to evolution, why couldn’t he destroy those not beneficial to health? Please clarify which errors he could/could not control.
DAVID: I'm sure you have no idea how the chromosomes rearrange themselves and split apart to make two new cells with twin (hopefully) DNA's. Read up on the process of mitosis, the complexity of the multiple molecular actions that help chromosomes split properly. Your eyes will roll back in your head and you will finally leave the concept of chance evolution completely.
I have rejected chance. My (theistic) theory is that the cells themselves designed the changes using their perhaps God-given intelligence. It’s you who insist that the “errors” which have led to evolutionary change are random, and all your God can do is “allow” them to survive (as opposed to deliberately designing the changes leading to speciation).
DAVID: What I saw in my microscope as a med student looked so simple. With current research the complexity of how it is really accomplished is spectacular. And it is protected by an amazing editing system to throw out junk that might appear. […] The editing is required from the beginning of cellular reproduction at the origin of life. without the editing we would not be here. Only a designer fits. […]
All fine with me, but we are not discussing the case for design! You have totally ignored the whole paragraph in which I have listed the contradictions in your theory. I’ve bolded it for you, as I wouldn't like you to miss it twice!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 12, 2020, 18:09 (1562 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: So the “final result” is a system which always has made and always will make mistakes! And according to you, he could not stop or control these mistakes, and yet he is in full control. And although he designed the system, the mistakes were/are not his fault.
DAVID: You are not thinking clearly. You agree molecules can make mistakes when in action. Again there are two time periods. During evolution a DNA mistake can change the course of evolution, and since God is in charge (in my view) of coding all DNA evolutionary advances (speciation), He corrects every error going off course. In our current time period He is not correcting as I view evolution as completed. Now we are responsible for corrections. All of this is logical and fits My theory.
dhw: Why are you confining pre-sapiens “errors” to those that influence the course of evolution? Do you think disease only started with sapiens? You yourself gave us the example of dinosaurs dying of cancer. These are the errors we deal with now. It makes no difference to the argument! You have stated over and over again that your God could not stop or control the errors in pre-sapiens time, but corrected “as much as he could”.
Dinosaur cancer is just an example of errors while living during all of evolution. God does not try or bother to correct those. See my statement now bolded above. God codes all DNA for evolutionary advances, but DNA can make mistakes, which he corrects or accepts if it fits His plans.
dhw: So much for total control. As for evolution, your new theory is that it was caused by random mutations (“errors”), and the beneficial ones were selected by God (Darwin says they were selected by Nature). This is the opposite of your previous theory that your God directly designed every species.
See above . Read more carefully. Not so. He designs all advances in new species, but allows beneficial mutations. You are beginning to understand my view of errors during evolution affecting the progression of evolution and errors while living, now or during evolution
dhw: I think most people, including even me, are aware that when something goes wrong with their bodies, something has gone wrong with their bodies. I am only startled by such arguments as God – if he exists – has created a system that always makes mistakes which he can’t control, although he is in total control, and he corrected ALL the errors although he only corrected as many as he could, and he left backup systems which sometimes work and sometimes don’t, although he couldn’t correct those mistakes himself, and he’s like an author correcting his mistakes, except that unlike the author it’s not his fault if there are mistakes to correct, and God is all-powerful and all-knowing except when he is not all-powerful and all-knowing.
A total distortion of my position, as stated. My quote in red needs to be shown in original context because it never fit my thinking about God's total control of DNA evolution coding.
DAVID: I'll stick by my clear explanation above. You confusion is complete because you constantly conflate God during evolution as He coded DNA to advance the complexity of organisms and the errors in DNA and other molecules today, when evolution is over and we are in charge. God did the best He could in giving us the tight editing controls we see in cellular reproduction.dhw: Again you are confining pre-sapiens errors to those that affected the course of evolution. The same system also led to disease in pre-sapiens times, and those are the kind of errors we are still trying to correct today. Yes, I am confused. I don’t understand how he can be in total control of random errors which he can’t stop or control (your words, not mine). Are you saying he could control errors relating to evolution but not errors relating to disease? Why not?
See above. Living disease in already produced species may lead to necessary deaths. God ignores those DNA mistakes, but cannot allow DNA changes that set evolution off course.
DAVID: I'm sure you have no idea how the chromosomes rearrange themselves and split apart to make two new cells with twin (hopefully) DNA's. Read up on the process of mitosis, the complexity of the multiple molecular actions that help chromosomes split properly. Your eyes will roll back in your head and you will finally leave the concept of chance evolution completely.
dhw: It’s you who insist that the “errors” which have led to evolutionary change are random, and all your God can do is “allow” them to survive (as opposed to deliberately designing the changes leading to speciation).
Again distortion. God only allows chance mutations that fit his plans, stated many times now.
He maintains tight control in designing new evolutionary DNA. As an editor He allows chance beneficial mutations.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 12, 2020, 22:55 (1562 days ago) @ David Turell
This article shows that simple humans can edit DNA to make a protein. Must be real easy for God to edit DNA:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-chemists-genetic-code-coli-21st.html
"Rice University chemist Han Xiao and his team have successfully expanded the genetic code of Escherichia coli bacteria to produce a synthetic building block, a "noncanonical amino acid." The result is a living indicator for oxidative stress.
***
"The new study does just that by engineering bacteria to produce the extra amino acid, called 5-hydroxyl-tryptophan (5HTP), which appears naturally in humans as a precursor to the neurotransmitter serotonin, but not in E. coli. The novel production of 5HTP prompts the bacteria to produce a protein that fluoresces when the organism is under metabolic stress."
Comment: It required much work, but it is successful. This still doesn't tell us how God might code new species, but that is what I think God did to manage the process of evolution
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
David’s new error theory is so confused and confusing that I will try to unravel it, using his own words. First of all, what are these errors? “These biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault.” When do they occur? Always: “DNA as a molecule can always make mistakes and will during evolution and now in a different time period.” The latter comment refers to pre-sapiens evolution as one period, when God was active, and the present, in which God is inactive and we are “in charge to handle molecular mistakes.”
If, for the sake of this discussion, we accept the existence of God, we must now tackle two basic questions: 1) how much control does God have over these accidents, and 2) what role do they play in David’s theory of evolution?
Re control: “You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control.”
“No form of any God could control molecular mistakes in free-floating molecules which are supposed to respond properly to specific stimuli.”
David divides the errors into two categories: those that cause disease and death, and those which ”During evolution… can change the course of evolution.” As regards the latter, despite the blanket rejection of the possibility of divine control (which apparently means that although he designed the system, the errors are not his fault), “if it is a bad mutation, as most are, He deletes it. If it happens to be beneficial for the advancing evolutionary code He wants, he keeps it.” I’ll return to this later. As regards the former: “ Dinosaur cancer is just an example of errors while living during all of evolution. God does not try or bother to correct those.” However, this is directly contradicted by the following exchange:
dhw: How could he have directly dabbled or provided the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year programme to correct errors he could not correct?
DAVID: I don't know when He recognized the problem during evolution, but I would guess quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. Note the blue comment: He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as He could.
Clearly, then, he had limited control over the errors from early on in evolution, and the backups – which were equally prone to error – prove that he did “bother”. We are therefore left with a God who mysteriously only had limited control over some accidents (disease and death) and yet had total control over others (affecting the course of evolution). We must remember that ALL of these errors take place in the same system which God himself designed. David himself confirms the lack of control: “I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” (Elsewhere David has repeatedly emphasized that his God is all-powerful and is always in total control.)
As regards evolution, until now David’s theory has been that his God directly designed every species, econiche, lifestyle, natural wonder etc, in the history of life, and all of these were “part of the goal of evolving humans”. The direct design entailed either a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for each development, or a direct dabble. However, if a random mutation could “change the course of evolution”, then quite clearly it was not part of the original 3.8-billion-year-old programme. This even extends to humans: “A mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution”. Without preprogramming, we are left with divine dabbling, but this entailed accepting or rejecting the change of direction - not designing it. Since these random mutations were ALWAYS happening, clearly evolution was constantly switching directions, and all God could do was allow it to happen or stop it from happening. Goodbye, then, to targeted evolution by design.
This view of God, no longer all-powerful and all-knowing, and no longer with a fixed programme that directly designs every life form etc. in history, opens the door to every theory that I have proposed: if his goal was humans, he may have experimented to get what he wanted (let’s see if these random mutations will get us there), or the random mutations may have given him the idea later on in the ever changing history. Or maybe he WANTED the randomness and deliberately designed a system that would provide unpredictable mutations because he WANTED the higgledy-piggledy and ever changing bush. The only theory that is not supported by all the above is that in which an all-powerful God had total control over evolution, had one specific life form – H. sapiens (plus food supply) – as his goal, but directly designed millions of other life forms that had nothing to do with H. sapiens.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, August 13, 2020, 15:55 (1561 days ago) @ dhw
There is no point in trying to correct the mishmash of your translation of my theory of how God deals with evolution and His knowledge that functioning molecules make mistakes. First, God is in charge of running evolution. Therefor He has total control of the final output at each advancing stage of evolutionary complexity. He codes the genome to his satisfaction. However, the living species can develop DNA copy errors and start to mutate into a direction God likes, because it fits His planned advances in complexity. He allows that to continue. However a bad mutation in God's view will be edited out, and disappear. He has total control of each stage output entering into the next advanced stage.
Note I am separating the discussion into two distinct time periods. Mistakes during evolution are totally under God control. However during the time period of simply living as an evolved species, we know from our own experience, mistakes happen. The dinosaur cancer dhw worries about is no issue for God to act. It was the result of copy error. The dinosaur dies, but its death has no relationship to advancing evolution. God doesn't care or even take notice. This fits our current reality. We are in charge of all health corrections, if possible.
I follow Adler in accepting humans are God's final goal. History tells us God, who is in charge of creating all of reality, evolved us from bacteria. That simple logic escapes dhw, a problem for him I've never understood. My view of God is He knows exactly what He is doing. He has a specific goal, and He proceeded knowing fully what to expect from molecular errors.
I've known about the molecular errors problem long before I joined this website in discussion. When I started this discussion a few days ago, I knew it would upset things and said so. In my view, God does not experiment, He doesn't change his mind in midstream, He is not interested in spectacle. dhw's God and mine cannot even be reconciled in any way. dhw's God is a humanized version of what I think about God. A God who can create the complex universe, evolve it, create the Milky Way, evolve it, create the Earth as the ideal planet for life, evolve it, create life, and evolve it, is a teleologically driven God. Not dhw 's mamby-pamby god.
This is all quite clear to me as totally logical, based on the God I imagine. I don't care to respond to my quotes taken out of context, when I'm not sure which time period is under discussion: evolutionary time, or while living time when looking at molecular errors, which we know occurred in both time periods.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: There is no point in trying to correct the mishmash of your translation of my theory of how God deals with evolution and His knowledge that functioning molecules make mistakes. First, God is in charge of running evolution.
I would rather you corrected the “mishmash” than simply dodged the arguments, which you now force me to repeat. First, there are different ways of “running” things, as is made clear by the fact that you have offered one theory and I have offered several different theories.
DAVID: Therefore He has total control of the final output at each advancing stage of evolutionary complexity. He codes the genome to his satisfaction. However, the living species can develop DNA copy errors and start to mutate into a direction God likes, because it fits His planned advances in complexity. He allows that to continue. However a bad mutation in God's view will be edited out, and disappear. He has total control of each stage output entering into the next advanced stage.
Here you simply repeat your theory. You ignore your contradictory statements about control (see later), but the major problem is that it contradicts your theory that your all-powerful God’s only purpose was to design H. sapiens, but first he directly designed millions of other life forms etc. The errors you refer to are “chance events, accidents not a designer’s fault” and “DNA as a molecule can always make mistakes and will during evolution and now in a different time.” (see later). These errors can “change the course of evolution”, and indeed “a mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged our human evolution”. Please explain how God “allowing” random mutations to change the course of evolution is consistent with God directly designing all life forms, including us.
DAVID: I don't care to respond to my quotes taken out of context, when I'm not sure which time period is under discussion: evolutionary time, or while living time when looking at molecular errors, which we know occurred in both time periods.
I was scrupulously careful to indicate which quotes applied to which period, as below.
DAVID: Note I am separating the discussion into two distinct time periods. Mistakes during evolution are totally under God control. However during the time period of simply living as an evolved species, we know from our own experience, mistakes happen. The dinosaur cancer dhw worries about is no issue for God to act. It was the result of copy error. The dinosaur dies, but its death has no relationship to advancing evolution. God doesn't care or even take notice. This fits our current reality. We are in charge of all health corrections, if possible.
In my introduction I made it clear that there were two periods (bolded above): pre-sapiens evolution and the present. Later I distinguished between errors that cause disease and death, and those which “During evolution…can change the course of evolution.” Re the dinosaur, you guessed that disease occurred “quite early”, and your God “put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” Clearly then he cared and took notice, but had a limited degree of control. Since all these errors take place in the same mechanism, I don’t understand how your God could have total control over the evolutionary “errors” and yet only have limited control over the disease-makers. In quote after quote you emphasize that your God CAN’T control the errors: “No form of any God could control molecular mistakes in free-floating molecules which are supposed to respond properly to specific stimuli” and “You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control.”
DAVID: I follow Adler in accepting humans are God's final goal. History tells us God, who is in charge of creating all of reality, evolved us from bacteria. That simple logic escapes dhw, a problem for him I've never understood. My view of God is He knows exactly what He is doing. He has a specific goal, and He proceeded knowing fully what to expect from molecular errors. (dhw’s bold)
Your attempts to ignore the illogical elements of your original theory are dealt with on the other thread. My God would also know exactly what he was doing, and would have a specific goal or goals. That is why I propose that he might have deliberately designed the system with all its errors, instead of your version, which is that he designed it but the errors were not his fault! What do you mean by he knew fully what to expect (bolded)? He could not stop the random errors from occurring but could only “allow” them to change the course of evolution, so are you saying he knew in advance which errors would be beneficial or harmful? You say you are “the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” Please tell us, then, what your God did NOT know about the errors.
The rest of your post reiterates your beliefs about God and your rejection of my alternative interpretations of his nature and possible purposes. It has nothing to do with your “error theory”, but I will transfer the end to the other thread.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, August 14, 2020, 18:12 (1560 days ago) @ dhw
Before starting in bits and pieces rather than statements, let my note that my thinking and analysis of what God might do is under constant change, and the past quotes of mine you take from my stream of consciousness replies and gleefully present as my set-in-stone opinion are not ever permanent theory. Frankly, I'd never fully delved into the issue of molecular mistakes and God's handling of them in any thoughtful detail. What I wrote yesterday is exactly where I am at this point.
DAVID: Therefore He has total control of the final output at each advancing stage of evolutionary complexity. He codes the genome to his satisfaction. However, the living species can develop DNA copy errors and start to mutate into a direction God likes, because it fits His planned advances in complexity. He allows that to continue. However a bad mutation in God's view will be edited out, and disappear. He has total control of each stage output entering into the next advanced stage.
dhw: Please explain how God “allowing” random mutations to change the course of evolution is consistent with God directly designing all life forms, including us.
I am amazed at your statement. God is the final editor of what genomes pass on to each new level of evolution. What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God's plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!
DAVID: Note I am separating the discussion into two distinct time periods. Mistakes during evolution are totally under God control. However during the time period of simply living as an evolved species, we know from our own experience, mistakes happen. The dinosaur cancer dhw worries about is no issue for God to act. It was the result of copy error. The dinosaur dies, but its death has no relationship to advancing evolution. God doesn't care or even take notice. This fits our current reality. We are in charge of all health corrections, if possible.dhw: Since all these errors take place in the same mechanism, I don’t understand how your God could have total control over the evolutionary “errors” and yet only have limited control over the disease-makers.
I've eliminated your misuse of my old quotes. I've explained the above clearly, but will repeat again. IMHO God seriously edits evolutionary genome changes, but what happens to individual organisms is of no matter to Him, as shown by currently when we are in charge of helping
DAVID: I follow Adler in accepting humans are God's final goal. History tells us God, who is in charge of creating all of reality, evolved us from bacteria. That simple logic escapes dhw, a problem for him I've never understood. My view of God is He knows exactly what He is doing. He has a specific goal, and He proceeded knowing fully what to expect from molecular errors. (dhw’s bold)
dhw: Your attempts to ignore the illogical elements of your original theory are dealt with on the other thread. My God would also know exactly what he was doing, and would have a specific goal or goals. That is why I propose that he might have deliberately designed the system with all its errors, instead of your version, which is that he designed it but the errors were not his fault! What do you mean by he knew fully what to expect (bolded)? He could not stop the random errors from occurring but could only “allow” them to change the course of evolution, so are you saying he knew in advance which errors would be beneficial or harmful? You say you are “the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” Please tell us, then, what your God did NOT know about the errors.
Doesn't any coding expert know what his coding goal is??? Coding is to produce a specified output. Tony can help here. God fully knew what the accepted errors would produce. If He didn't, He had no capacity to code for future results He wanted.
dhw: The rest of your post reiterates your beliefs about God and your rejection of my alternative interpretations of his nature and possible purposes. It has nothing to do with your “error theory”, but I will transfer the end to the other thread.
I have a different view of God than you do. That won't change.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: Before starting in bits and pieces rather than statements, let my note that my thinking and analysis of what God might do is under constant change, and the past quotes of mine you take from my stream of consciousness replies and gleefully present as my set-in-stone opinion are not ever permanent theory. Frankly, I'd never fully delved into the issue of molecular mistakes and God's handling of them in any thoughtful detail. What I wrote yesterday is exactly where I am at this point.
I appreciate your honesty, but wish you had written this in a different spirit. I do not gleefully present the contradictions you keep defending. We are both on a quest for logical explanations of life’s history and a possible God’s possible nature and purpose(s). You do present your opinions as if they were set in stone, and you resolutely ignore or even defend the contradictions. I try to point them out. What else can I do? No, you have clearly never delved into the issue, and I have repeatedly asked you to rethink this particular theory. Thank you for doing so.
dhw: Please explain how God “allowing” random mutations to change the course of evolution is consistent with God directly designing all life forms, including us.
DAVID: I am amazed at your statement. God is the final editor of what genomes pass on to each new level of evolution. What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God's plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!
There is nothing wrong with a random mutation or with chance playing a role. But if chance can play a role in changing the course of evolution, and all God can do is “allow” it to survive, then this blatantly contradicts your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God had everything planned from the beginning and directly designed every species as “part of the goal of evolving humans”. Now you tell us he is not all-powerful and not all-knowing and did not directly design every species. The only way you could fit these ideas together would be if you had your God wanting to create humans but not knowing how to do it. Lucky us, a random mutation showed him the way! However, this idea is anathema to you, because despite your new theory, you still want to cling to your old theory, as is all too evident from our discussions on the other thread. Please feel free to revise one or other of these two theories.
DAVID: The dinosaur cancer dhw worries about is no issue for God to act. It was the result of copy error. The dinosaur dies, but its death has no relationship to advancing evolution. God doesn't care or even take notice. This fits our current reality. We are in charge of all health corrections, if possible.
dhw: Since all these errors take place in the same mechanism, I don’t understand how your God could have total control over the evolutionary “errors” and yet only have limited control over the disease-makers.
DAVID: I've eliminated your misuse of my old quotes. I've explained the above clearly, but will repeat again. IMHO God seriously edits evolutionary genome changes, but what happens to individual organisms is of no matter to Him, as shown by currently when we are in charge of helping.
Everything you write becomes an “old quote” the day after you’ve written it. What am I supposed to comment on if it’s not what you have written? Here you say that during evolution he didn’t care about or notice the disease-causing errors. Are you then rescinding your guess that disease began “quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. […] He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could”? Why did he put in backups and correct as much as he could if he didn’t care?
DAVID: He has a specific goal, and He proceeded knowing fully what to expect from molecular errors. (dhw’s bold)
dhw: He could not stop the random errors from occurring but could only “allow” them to change the course of evolution, so are you saying he knew in advance which errors would be beneficial or harmful? You say you are “the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” Please tell us, then, what your God did NOT know about the errors.
DAVID: Doesn't any coding expert know what his coding goal is??? Coding is to produce a specified output. Tony can help here. God fully knew what the accepted errors would produce. If He didn't, He had no capacity to code for future results He wanted.
You have missed the first point of this post. If we accept that he knew his goal was H. sapiens, but the route to H. sapiens was marked by random mutations which he “allowed” because he thought they would be beneficial, you will have to jettison the design theory I have bolded earlier in this post. I look forward to the day in, say, a week’s time when you will blame me for quoting your current, contradictory ideas.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, August 15, 2020, 15:24 (1559 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Saturday, August 15, 2020, 15:32
DAVID: Before starting in bits and pieces rather than statements, let my note that my thinking and analysis of what God might do is under constant change,...Frankly, I'd never fully delved into the issue of molecular mistakes and God's handling of them in any thoughtful detail. What I wrote yesterday is exactly where I am at this point.
dhw: I appreciate your honesty, but wish you had written this in a different spirit. I do not gleefully present the contradictions you keep defending. We are both on a quest for logical explanations of life’s history and a possible God’s possible nature and purpose(s)... No, you have clearly never delved into the issue, and I have repeatedly asked you to rethink this particular theory. Thank you for doing so.
dhw: Please explain how God “allowing” random mutations to change the course of evolution is consistent with God directly designing all life forms, including us.
DAVID: I am amazed at your statement. God is the final editor of what genomes pass on to each new level of evolution. What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God's plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!
dhw: There is nothing wrong with a random mutation or with chance playing a role. But if chance can play a role in changing the course of evolution, and all God can do is “allow” it to survive, then this blatantly contradicts your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God had everything planned from the beginning and directly designed every species as “part of the goal of evolving humans”.
You've made an excellent point. I still view God as designing each complicated advance to a new species. Using the strange whale series as an example, and remembering epigenetic adaptations, each step required many alterations in physical form and physiology. When a stage began to modify itself epigenetically in a way that God saw would not lead logically to the next planned step, He would step in and change it. Conversely, if it was a good step, He allowed it. You should be very comfortable with that view. I am. It fully allows for God's recognition that free-to-act molecules under strict instructions will still make occasional mistakes, tehv startv of this discussion
dhw: Here you say that during evolution he didn’t care about or notice the disease-causing errors. Are you then rescinding your guess that disease began “quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. […] He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could”? Why did he put in backups and correct as much as he could if he didn’t care?
Again you are confusing two genome outcomes, during reproduction and during life. The backups relate to DNA copying in reproduction of species so they stay unchanged. DNA mistakes during life that result in aging, or cancer or disease are mistakes in backups that lead to death, and death is required. That is why we are in charge of corrections now, as I view God is not active and He has given us responsibility.
DAVID: He has a specific goal, and He proceeded knowing fully what to expect from molecular errors. (dhw’s bold)dhw: He could not stop the random errors from occurring but could only “allow” them to change the course of evolution, so are you saying he knew in advance which errors would be beneficial or harmful? You say you are “the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” Please tell us, then, what your God did NOT know about the errors.
DAVID: Doesn't any coding expert know what his coding goal is??? Coding is to produce a specified output. Tony can help here. God fully knew what the accepted errors would produce. If He didn't, He had no capacity to code for future results He wanted.
dhw: You have missed the first point of this post. If we accept that he knew his goal was H. sapiens, but the route to H. sapiens was marked by random mutations which he “allowed” because he thought they would be beneficial, you will have to jettison the design theory I have bolded earlier in this post. I look forward to the day in, say, a week’s time when you will blame me for quoting your current, contradictory ideas.
All clearly explained above. I expect you to agree with my presentation, now more clearly thought through with your helpful critique. I find no contradictions. Will you?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God's plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!
dhw: There is nothing wrong with a random mutation or with chance playing a role. But if chance can play a role in changing the course of evolution, and all God can do is “allow” it to survive, then this blatantly contradicts your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God had everything planned from the beginning and directly designed every species as “part of the goal of evolving humans”.
DAVID: You've made an excellent point. I still view God as designing each complicated advance to a new species. Using the strange whale series as an example, and remembering epigenetic adaptations, each step required many alterations in physical form and physiology. When a stage began to modify itself epigenetically in a way that God saw would not lead logically to the next planned step, He would step in and change it. Conversely, if it was a good step, He allowed it. You should be very comfortable with that view. I am. It fully allows for God's recognition that free-to-act molecules under strict instructions will still make occasional mistakes, the start of this discussion.
And later:
DAVID: I expect you to agree with my presentation, now more clearly thought through with your helpful critique. I find no contradictions. Will you?
I am not at all comfortable with your presentation, and I don’t see it as being relevant to the major problem your error theory creates. I see the whale series as a natural progression of changes to improve the organism’s chances of survival in its maritime environment. No random mutations but, as you indicate yourself, an ongoing series of adaptations. This has nothing to do with “errors” that change the direction of evolution and which God “allows” to survive. Please don’t let us be diverted by the history of the whale. You are still lumbered with conflicting theories: that your God’s sole purpose from the very beginning was to create H. sapiens, that he had the whole of evolution planned in advance and was in total control, and yet now he has become dependent on random mutations which he could not control other than allowing them to survive if he thought they might take him in the direction he wanted to go. Chance versus design has been a constant theme throughout all our years of discussion, in which you have ridiculed chance and opted solely for direct design in the form of preprogramming and/or dabbling. Suddenly you are in favour of random mutations as playing a major role in speciation. In this respect, you have sided with Darwin in one of the few aspects of his theory that I had joined you in rejecting!
dhw: Here you say that during evolution he didn’t care about or notice the disease-causing errors. Are you then rescinding your guess that disease began “quite early as we know of cell-splitting problems, which means bacteria could certainly have reproductive problems. […] He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could”? Why did he put in backups and correct as much as he could if he didn’t care?
DAVID: Again you are confusing two genome outcomes, during reproduction and during life. The backups relate to DNA copying in reproduction of species so they stay unchanged. DNA mistakes during life that result in aging, or cancer or disease are mistakes in backups that lead to death, and death is required. That is why we are in charge of corrections now, as I view God is not active and He has given us responsibility.
The two genome “errors” that we are concerned with are those harmful ones that cause disease and death, and those beneficial ones that cause changes to the course of evolution (i.e. innovations). He could hardly have provided backups for beneficial evolutionary mutations he didn’t even know were going to happen! Those that cause disease and death took place throughout evolution. You say he wasn’t bothered about them. So once again, why did he provide backups to correct as many as he could?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Sunday, August 16, 2020, 19:53 (1558 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I expect you to agree with my presentation, now more clearly thought through with your helpful critique. I find no contradictions. Will you?
dhw: I am not at all comfortable with your presentation, and I don’t see it as being relevant to the major problem your error theory creates. I see the whale series as a natural progression of changes to improve the organism’s chances of survival in its maritime environment. No random mutations but, as you indicate yourself, an ongoing series of adaptations. This has nothing to do with “errors” that change the direction of evolution and which God “allows” to survive....
The two genome “errors” that we are concerned with are those harmful ones that cause disease and death, and those beneficial ones that cause changes to the course of evolution (i.e. innovations).
I need to try again. My basic premise is God is in charge of all creation including evolution. His goal is humans appearing. He codes the genome from the beginning of life and dabbles when He has to. He knows that protein living molecules make mistakes. So the genome mechanism has backup copy error editing to stop what it can. During evolution most DNA mistakes are errors and are removed by dabbling. The few good mutations are obviously allowed and must be viewed as omissions in God's pre-planning, and fits my thought that the God of the Bible does not foresee everything perfectly as organisms adapt and climate evolves. Adler's finding that most evolution is an automatic removal of DNA code must also be noted and supports my idea of pre-planning. The loss of code could be automatic or dabbles. Since all living organisms have an adaptive ability God must keep watch during evolution that everything is on course.
That discussion does not cover errors while living, speciation not involved. That is what we observe now as I consider evolution over. All living organisms are DNA protected by copy error systems. These are very important because our cells are constantly dividing and reinventing us. The copy systems are the same systems present in evolution. During evolution they served duplicate roles, advancing evolution and protecting proper copying. Now the copy systems are still present to protect us from DNA copy diseases. God does not act now. We do the job, as well as we can. During evolution God worried about the course of evolution, not individual DNA diseases (dino cancer). This exposition fits errors into my theory system.
I don't accept your natural system of evolution. God speciates and the whale series demands design. The massive phenotypical and physiological species changes require design.
In thinking about what I present strictly follow your statement I have bolded.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: The two genome “errors” that we are concerned with are those harmful ones that cause disease and death, and those beneficial ones that cause changes to the course of evolution (i.e. innovations).
DAVID: I need to try again. My basic premise is God is in charge of all creation including evolution. His goal is humans appearing. He codes the genome from the beginning of life and dabbles when He has to. He knows that protein living molecules make mistakes. So the genome mechanism has backup copy error editing to stop what it can.
Which errors are you referring to? Clearly he would not devise backup copy error editing to stop the random beneficial “errors” that change the course of evolution! And so we can only go back to your original statement that early on in evolution he put in backups related to disease and death, “so He was correcting as much as he could”. These are the “errors” you say he has now left us to try and correct, and the backups contradict your statement that he didn’t bother about this category of error during pre-sapiens evolution.
DAVID: During evolution most DNA mistakes are errors and are removed by dabbling. The few good mutations are obviously allowed and must be viewed as omissions in God's pre-planning, and fits my thought that the God of the Bible does not foresee everything perfectly as organisms adapt and climate evolves.
Until now you have constantly reiterated that all species were directly designed, and nothing was left to chance, and God knew precisely what he was doing from the very beginning. You reject any possibility of his having to experiment (i.e. not knowing everything from the start) but now you have him actually relying on chance to offer him unforeseen ways to help him achieve what you think was his goal.
DAVID: Adler's finding that most evolution is an automatic removal of DNA code must also be noted and supports my idea of pre-planning. The loss of code could be automatic or dabbles. Since all living organisms have an adaptive ability God must keep watch during evolution that everything is on course.
I thought this was Behe’s idea. It has nothing whatsoever to do with your brand new theory that speciation was NOT pre-planned, that your God relied on random mutations to “change the course of evolution”, and that his role was precisely the same as Darwin’s natural selection.
DAVID: That discussion does not cover errors while living, speciation not involved. That is what we observe now as I consider evolution over. All living organisms are DNA protected by copy error systems. These are very important because our cells are constantly dividing and reinventing us. The copy systems are the same systems present in evolution. During evolution they served duplicate roles, advancing evolution and protecting proper copying. Now the copy systems are still present to protect us from DNA copy diseases. God does not act now. We do the job, as well as we can. During evolution God worried about the course of evolution, not individual DNA diseases (dino cancer). This exposition fits errors into my theory system. (dhw's bold)
But it does not fit your God’s provision DURING evolution of backups for individual diseases, as above. And we must continue to emphasize that these backup systems are also full of errors, once again demonstrating your God’s lack of control over his copy system. You have quite rightly acknowledged my earlier point that the copy systems are the same. And so you have him able to destroy all the bad errors relating to evolution, but incapable of destroying all the bad errors relating to death and disease. Do you not regard this as odd?I’m sorry, but your theory is still full of contradictions, and you are creating an image of God that renders him less and less in control and more and more incompetent.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, August 17, 2020, 19:45 (1557 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I need to try again. My basic premise is God is in charge of all creation including evolution. His goal is humans appearing. He codes the genome from the beginning of life and dabbles when He has to. He knows that protein living molecules make mistakes. So the genome mechanism has backup copy error editing to stop what it can.
dhw: Which errors are you referring to?
During evolution most DNA mistakes are errors and are removed by dabbling. The few good mutations are obviously allowed and can be viewed either omissions in God's pre-planning, or simply fitting, in a general sense, God's planning to evolve humans in a slightly altered way.
dhw: Until now you have constantly reiterated that all species were directly designed, and nothing was left to chance, and God knew precisely what he was doing from the very beginning. You reject any possibility of his having to experiment (i.e. not knowing everything from the start) but now you have him actually relying on chance to offer him unforeseen ways to help him achieve what you think was his goal.
There is no reliance on chance. Read the above comment. No experimentation. Your bias is showing. During evolution He created backup editing for DNA errors to help control the evolutionary path to humans. Diseases that appeared from DNA errors during living, were not corrected by God, the dino cancer the best example.
DAVID: Adler's finding that most evolution is an automatic removal of DNA code must also be noted and supports my idea of pre-planning. The loss of code could be automatic or dabbles. Since all living organisms have an adaptive ability God must keep watch during evolution that everything is on course.dhw: I thought this was Behe’s idea.
Brain fart, Behe. My comment still fits.
DAVID: That discussion does not cover errors while living, speciation not involved. That is what we observe now as I consider evolution over. All living organisms are DNA protected by copy error systems. These are very important because our cells are constantly dividing and reinventing us. The copy systems are the same systems present in evolution. During evolution they served duplicate roles, advancing evolution and protecting proper copying. Now the copy systems are still present to protect us from DNA copy diseases. God does not act now. We do the job, as well as we can. During evolution God worried about the course of evolution, not individual DNA diseases (dino cancer). This exposition fits errors into my theory system. (dhw's bold)dhw: But it does not fit your God’s provision DURING evolution of backups for individual diseases, as above. And we must continue to emphasize that these backup systems are also full of errors, once again demonstrating your God’s lack of control over his copy system. You have quite rightly acknowledged my earlier point that the copy systems are the same. And so you have him able to destroy all the bad errors relating to evolution, but incapable of destroying all the bad errors relating to death and disease. Do you not regard this as odd?I’m sorry, but your theory is still full of contradictions, and you are creating an image of God that renders him less and less in control and more and more incompetent.
Your confusion about living organisms is total. Errors while living are a tiny percentage of DNA reproduction second by second as we live. What you seem to constantly misunderstand is that your body and mine is not the one we were born with and grew up with. Everything with the exception of bone that remodels and the brain that mainly reorganizes is changed!! Death has to occur: God doesn't worry about rare living errors. Your bold is off base.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: During evolution most DNA mistakes are errors and are removed by dabbling. The few good mutations are obviously allowed and can be viewed either omissions in God's pre-planning, or simply fitting, in a general sense, God's planning to evolve humans in a slightly altered way.
We agreed that there are two categories of errors: one that affects evolution, and one that causes diseases and death (see later). “Omissions in God’s pre-planning” already weakens your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God always knew what he wanted and how he would get it. But we now have random mutations changing the course of evolution, luckily fitting a not all-powerful, not all-knowing God’s plan to evolve humans, and for millions and millions of years (the errors are ongoing) helping to produce life forms etc. that have nothing whatsoever to do with your God’s direct design of H. sapiens and his food supply.
dhw: Until now you have constantly reiterated that all species were directly designed, and nothing was left to chance, and God knew precisely what he was doing from the very beginning. You reject any possibility of his having to experiment (i.e. not knowing everything from the start) but now you have him actually relying on chance to offer him unforeseen ways to help him achieve what you think was his goal.
DAVID: There is no reliance on chance. Read the above comment. No experimentation. Your bias is showing.
Experimentation is simply ONE theory to link the vast pre-human bush with your insistence that your God’s one and only goal was to design H. sapiens. I have proposed several other explanations, and remain open-minded about them all. My point was that experimentation would be far less damaging to your image of God than having him reliant on chance. And I’m sorry, but if mutational errors can “change the course of evolution”, and “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged our human evolution”, and the most your God can do is “allow” these mutations to survive, he is reliant on chance. And only a couple of days ago, your emphatic response to my objections was: “What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God’s plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!” Lucky God, that chance threw up changes that enabled him to fulfil the goal you have imposed on him.
DAVID: During evolution He created backup editing for DNA errors to help control the evolutionary path to humans. Diseases that appeared from DNA errors during living, were not corrected by God, the dino cancer the best example.
What backup editing? According to you, if an evolutionary “error” occurred that was beneficial, he allowed it to survive. If it was not beneficial, he destroyed it. Your so-called backups could therefore only apply to the disease-causing errors, and you even claim that these are still to be found as we humans grapple with their consequences.
dhw: And we must continue to emphasize that these backup systems are also full of errors, once again demonstrating your God’s lack of control over his copy system. You have quite rightly acknowledged my earlier point that the copy systems are the same. And so you have him able to destroy all the bad errors relating to evolution, but incapable of destroying all the bad errors relating to death and disease. Do you not regard this as odd?
DAVID: Your confusion about living organisms is total. Errors while living are a tiny
percentage of DNA reproduction second by second as we live. What you seem to constantly misunderstand is that your body and mine is not the one we were born with and grew up with. Everything with the exception of bone that remodels and the brain that mainly reorganizes is changed!! Death has to occur: God doesn't worry about rare living errors. Your bold is off base.
My bold emphasizes your God’s lack of control. The fact that our bodies are constantly changing is totally irrelevant to this error theory of yours. According to you – but correct me if I’m wrong - he has designed a system that makes errors which may change the course of evolution and which may also cause disease and death. As regards the first, he can allow them to survive or he can destroy them. These are changes to evolution which he did not design, and this contradicts your first theory, which had him directly designing every life form. As regards the second, despite your protestations to the contrary, he worried about them to the extent that “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” Backups make no sense if you try to apply them to the first category of error. And it also makes no sense to claim that, although all the errors took place in the same system, he could destroy all the bad errors but he could not destroy all the bad errors.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 18, 2020, 18:08 (1556 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: During evolution most DNA mistakes are errors and are removed by dabbling. The few good mutations are obviously allowed and can be viewed either omissions in God's pre-planning, or simply fitting, in a general sense, God's planning to evolve humans in a slightly altered way.
dhw: We agreed that there are two categories of errors: one that affects evolution, and one that causes diseases and death (see later). “Omissions in God’s pre-planning” already weakens your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God always knew what he wanted and how he would get it.
Your bias shows. I view God as all-powerful for many reasons. He created the universe based on quantum uncertainty and evolved it. Created the Earth and evolved it to allow life to be started there by His action and live there and evolve to create humans under his direct control. What He cannot control is the moment by moment molecular reaction errors during life which He created. Therefore He placed the backups for genome control, estimated by science at 99.99% effective. God cannot absolutely control those molecules, even while using quantum uncertainty that He understands and allows even if we don't understand it.
dhw: But we now have random mutations changing the course of evolution, luckily fitting a not all-powerful, not all-knowing God’s plan to evolve humans,
The random mutations are explained above. God runs evolution; He is in charge of speciation and He acts as final editor-in-charge over any DNA errors that appear removing all bad ones and allowing minor variations that fit His purpose. Remember 'good' mutations are extremely rare per science.
dhw: Experimentation is simply ONE theory to link the vast pre-human bush with your insistence that your God’s one and only goal was to design H. sapiens. I have proposed several other explanations, and remain open-minded about them all. My point was that experimentation would be far less damaging to your image of God than having him reliant on chance.
I've removed all your quotes from my previous posts as I was working through my thoughts about errors. it has been a work in process, not all thought-through at the beginning and bouncing ideas off you to help me progress. I've now completely reached a coherent theory about God's handling errors during evolution and while organisms live.
dhw: And we must continue to emphasize that these backup systems are also full of errors, once again demonstrating your God’s lack of control over his copy system. You have quite rightly acknowledged my earlier point that the copy systems are the same. And so you have him able to destroy all the bad errors relating to evolution, but incapable of destroying all the bad errors relating to death and disease. Do you not regard this as odd?DAVID: Your confusion about living organisms is total. Errors while living are a tiny
percentage of DNA reproduction second by second as we live. What you seem to constantly misunderstand is that your body and mine is not the one we were born with and grew up with. Everything with the exception of bone that remodels and the brain that mainly reorganizes is changed!! Death has to occur: God doesn't worry about rare living errors. Your bold is off base.dhw: My bold emphasizes your God’s lack of control. The fact that our bodies are constantly changing is totally irrelevant to this error theory of yours. According to you – but correct me if I’m wrong - he has designed a system that makes errors which may change the course of evolution and which may also cause disease and death. As regards the first, he can allow them to survive or he can destroy them. These are changes to evolution which he did not design, and this contradicts your first theory, which had him directly designing every life form.
A total distortion of my theory as now presented. Every error has to fit His plans for it to be allowed to remain. He edits fully all species changes.
dhw: As regards the second, despite your protestations to the contrary, he worried about them to the extent that “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” Backups make no sense if you try to apply them to the first category of error. And it also makes no sense to claim that, although all the errors took place in the same system, he could destroy all the bad errors but he could not destroy all the bad errors.
Again confusion about which errors are discussed. During evolution , all bad errors changing the course of evolution are destroyed, and the very rare good ones remain as they fit God's purposes. God speciates under full editing control of the genomes. Above, I've mentioned good mutations as possible 'omissions', a possibility which you think weakens God's powers. That is a correct observation. An all-powerful God could theoretically omit something. Let's consider it a sop to your fully humanized experimenting God, but I can easily go back to a totally all-powerful description. Perhaps, as I ponder the errors and how to fit them in, I should stick with completely all-powerful.
During life errors are allowed as that cause required deaths. Vast differences in considering which error is viewed.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: I've removed all your quotes from my previous posts as I was working through my thoughts about errors. it has been a work in process, not all thought-through at the beginning and bouncing ideas off you to help me progress. I've now completely reached a coherent theory about God's handling errors during evolution and while organisms live.
I’m glad to have helped, but removing all quotes does not tell me which of your “not thought-through” ideas you have abandoned. I can only comment on what you say and have said. Sadly, your announcement that your theory is now coherent does not make it coherent.
dhw: We agreed that there are two categories of errors: one that affects evolution, and one that causes diseases and death (see later). “Omissions in God’s pre-planning” already weakens your original theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God always knew what he wanted and how he would get it.
DAVID: Your bias shows. I view God as all-powerful for many reasons.
What bias? Either God is all-powerful or he is not! You give examples of his power, and then tell us:
DAVID: What He cannot control is the moment by moment molecular reaction errors during life which He created.
You then try to minimize this lack of control, but you have told us that the random (i.e. not designed) errors in your God’s system are responsible for changes in the course of evolution (controllable), and for diseases and death (uncontrollable). So he is not all-powerful. How does this make me biased?
DAVID: The random mutations are explained above. God runs evolution; He is in charge of speciation and He acts as final editor-in-charge over any DNA errors that appear removing all bad ones and allowing minor variations that fit His purpose. Remember 'good' mutations are extremely rare per science.
Are you now saying these random “errors” did NOT change the course of evolution, and that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God” could NOT have “arranged our human evolution”? What are these “minor variations” that you have suddenly introduced to replace the errors that can change the course of evolution?
dhw: According to you – but correct me if I’m wrong - he has designed a system that makes errors which may change the course of evolution and which may also cause disease and death. As regards the first, he can allow them to survive or he can destroy them. These are changes to evolution which he did not design, and this contradicts your first theory, which had him directly designing every life form.
DAVID: A total distortion of my theory as now presented. Every error has to fit His plans for it to be allowed to remain. He edits fully all species changes.
What distortion? He did not design the errors, whereas in your original theory he directly designs every life form. An editor who allows something is not a designer who designs something. But thank you for restoring “species changes” in place of “minor variations”.
dhw: As regards the second, despite your protestations to the contrary, he worried about them to the extent that “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” […]
DAVID: Again confusion about which errors are discussed. During evolution, all bad errors changing the course of evolution are destroyed […] Above, I've mentioned good mutations as possible 'omissions', a possibility which you think weakens God's powers. That is a correct observation.
Thank you. But the confusion about which errors is yours. The backups, which indicate that “He was correcting as much as he could” can only refer to errors that cause disease and death. He did not require backups for the evolutionary errors he allowed! And so your claim that he did not care about disease-causing errors ( ignored here) cannot be true, and again this reveals his lack of control.
DAVID: An all-powerful God could theoretically omit something. Let's consider it a sop to your fully humanized experimenting God, but I can easily go back to a totally all-powerful description. Perhaps, as I ponder the errors and how to fit them in, I should stick with completely all-powerful.
He would only be all-powerful if he deliberately omitted something, which has been my proposal all along: namely, that the system he invented (if he exists) was the system he intended to create, and the so-called “errors” were produced by a mechanism deliberately designed to create the countless variations of life forms etc. that go to make up life’s history. The “molecules” were given the freedom to go their own way. Please keep pondering!
DAVID: During life errors are allowed as that cause required deaths. Vast differences in considering which error is viewed.
Yes indeed. And doesn’t it strike you as odd that your God had full editorial control (all-powerful) over evolutionary errors, but limited editorial control (not all-powerful) over disease-causing errors (he corrected what he could), although they all occur within the same system as he designed it? And we haven’t even mentioned your passionate defence of the evolutionary role played by chance (“Chance can play a role!!!”) countered by “There is no reliance on chance”. I’m sorry, but I do not think you have “completely reached a coherent theory”, or that the contradictions are due to bias on my part.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 19, 2020, 19:54 (1555 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The random mutations are explained above. God runs evolution; He is in charge of speciation and He acts as final editor-in-charge over any DNA errors that appear removing all bad ones and allowing minor variations that fit His purpose. Remember 'good' mutations are extremely rare per science.
dhw: Are you now saying these random “errors” did NOT change the course of evolution, and that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God” could NOT have “arranged our human evolution”? What are these “minor variations” that you have suddenly introduced to replace the errors that can change the course of evolution?
I am correcting your distorted understanding, since I have introduced the FACT that living molecules can make mistakes and, therefore, during evolution errors involving new speciation have to be edited and corrected by God. Bad mutations are simply deleted. There is a possibility of 'good' slight variation on what God planned, and I can see Him allowing it. Note, only a possibility this happens, but I have to accept that mutations are occasionally 'good' ( as science shows) and account for how God might handle them.
dhw: What distortion? He did not design the errors, whereas in your original theory he directly designs every life form. An editor who allows something is not a designer who designs something. But thank you for restoring “species changes” in place of “minor variations”.dhw: As regards the second, despite your protestations to the contrary, he worried about them to the extent that “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” […]
The backups apply mainly to mistakes while organisms live to protect them during repeated copying that might lead to living damage. On further consideration, there should not be backups regarding DNA speciation changes. God must keep exact editing controls when He speciates.
DAVID: An all-powerful God could theoretically omit something. Let's consider it a sop to your fully humanized experimenting God, but I can easily go back to a totally all-powerful description. Perhaps, as I ponder the errors and how to fit them in, I should stick with completely all-powerful.
dhw: He would only be all-powerful if he deliberately omitted something, which has been my proposal all along: namely, that the system he invented (if he exists) was the system he intended to create, and the so-called “errors” were produced by a mechanism deliberately designed to create the countless variations of life forms etc. that go to make up life’s history. The “molecules” were given the freedom to go their own way. Please keep pondering!
The point is God cannot control molecular errors. God creates the bush of life purposely. No special error mechanism, your wild idea.
DAVID: During life errors are allowed as that cause required deaths. Vast differences in considering which error is viewed.dhw: Yes indeed. And doesn’t it strike you as odd that your God had full editorial control (all-powerful) over evolutionary errors, but limited editorial control (not all-powerful) over disease-causing errors (he corrected what he could), although they all occur within the same system as he designed it? '
I've explained all that before. God runs evolution, speciates and edits. During life He has put in backups to help life while life constantly reproduces its cells, but death is part of the plan. It is not important to God to save us from living errors. We know that from what we observe now. We are in charge.
And we haven’t even mentioned your passionate defence of the evolutionary role played by chance (“Chance can play a role!!!”) countered by “There is no reliance on chance”. I’m sorry, but I do not think you have “completely reached a coherent theory”, or that the contradictions are due to bias on my part.
With your help I've totally reconsidered my thinking about chance in regard to speciation. God accepts only minor variations in genome evolutionary changes. He is a precise editor.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: God runs evolution; He is in charge of speciation and He acts as final editor-in-charge over any DNA errors that appear removing all bad ones and allowing minor variations that fit His purpose. Remember 'good' mutations are extremely rare per science.
dhw: Are you now saying these random “errors” did NOT change the course of evolution, and that “a mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God” could NOT have “arranged our human evolution”? What are these “minor variations” that you have suddenly introduced to replace the errors that can change the course of evolution?
DAVID: I am correcting your distorted understanding, since I have introduced the FACT that living molecules can make mistakes and, therefore, during evolution errors involving new speciation have to be edited and corrected by God. Bad mutations are simply deleted. There is a possibility of 'good' slight variation on what God planned, and I can see Him allowing it. Note, only a possibility this happens, but I have to accept that mutations are occasionally 'good' ( as science shows) and account for how God might handle them.
What “distorted understanding”? I have repeated your own words, and asked you whether they still apply. Your response is as confusing as ever. Instead of these errors changing the course of evolution, and possibly even “arranging” our own evolution, they have suddenly become a mere possibility of “slight variation”. And yet they also “involve new speciation”! How does new speciation mean slight variation? And why does he have to correct the errors if they are good and he allows them go through? This whole theory is becoming more and more nebulous and confusing, but you accuse me of distorting it!
dhw: What distortion? He did not design the errors, whereas in your original theory he directly designs every life form. An editor who allows something is not a designer who designs something. But thank you for restoring “species changes” in place of “minor variations”.
dhw: As regards the second, despite your protestations to the contrary, he worried about them to the extent that “He put in backups, so He was correcting as much as he could.” […]
DAVID: The backups apply mainly to mistakes while organisms live to protect them during repeated copying that might lead to living damage. On further consideration, there should not be backups regarding DNA speciation changes. God must keep exact editing controls when He speciates.
Once again he edits (not designs) speciation changes, so these can hardly be called “slight variations”. I pointed out to you that backups could only refer to errors involving disease and death, but you claimed he was not bothered about these. Why would he create backups if he was not bothered?
DAVID: […] Perhaps, as I ponder the errors and how to fit them in, I should stick with completely all-powerful.
dhw: He would only be all-powerful if he deliberately omitted something, which has been my proposal all along: namely, that the system he invented (if he exists) was the system he intended to create, and the so-called “errors” were produced by a mechanism deliberately designed to create the countless variations of life forms etc. that go to make up life’s history. The “molecules” were given the freedom to go their own way.
DAVID: The point is God cannot control molecular errors. God creates the bush of life purposely. No special error mechanism, your wild idea.
I agree that if God exists, he would have created the bush purposely. And if he couldn’t control the ”errors”, the bush has arisen out of the freedom he gave to molecules to go their own way! It’s make-your-mind-up time: either he was incapable of controlling them, as you have just said, or he didn’t WANT to control them, which would explain why he built a system that went its own way to create the whole bush.
dhw: And we haven’t even mentioned your passionate defence of the evolutionary role played by chance (“Chance can play a role!!!”) countered by “There is no reliance on chance”. I’m sorry, but I do not think you have “completely reached a coherent theory”, or that the contradictions are due to bias on my part.
DAVID: With your help I've totally reconsidered my thinking about chance in regard to speciation. God accepts only minor variations in genome evolutionary changes. He is a precise editor.
It’s comforting to know that these discussions can result in such a U-turn. Perhaps eventually you will also sort out the muddle of what your God can and can’t control, and what he edits and what he designs. And perhaps you will even consider the possibility that your God deliberately invented a system in which molecules went their own free way, because that was what he wanted. At least this would restore some of the dignity you have tried so hard to take away from him – or have you also withdrawn your claim that you are “the one who is willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created”?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, August 20, 2020, 14:34 (1554 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I am correcting your distorted understanding, since I have introduced the FACT that living molecules can make mistakes and, therefore, during evolution errors involving new speciation have to be edited and corrected by God. Bad mutations are simply deleted. There is a possibility of 'good' slight variation on what God planned, and I can see Him allowing it. Note, only a possibility this happens, but I have to accept that mutations are occasionally 'good' ( as science shows) and account for how God might handle them.
dhw: What “distorted understanding”? I have repeated your own words, and asked you whether they still apply. Your response is as confusing as ever. Instead of these errors changing the course of evolution, and possibly even “arranging” our own evolution, they have suddenly become a mere possibility of “slight variation”. And yet they also “involve new speciation”! How does new speciation mean slight variation? And why does he have to correct the errors if they are good and he allows them go through? This whole theory is becoming more and more nebulous and confusing, but you accuse me of distorting it!
Not nebulous to me. I am working on a very coherent theory to include errors in the genome during evolution. And you are helping. Genome errors during evolution require God editing is a simple response.
[…]
DAVID: The backups apply mainly to mistakes while organisms live to protect them during repeated copying that might lead to living damage. On further consideration, there should not be backups regarding DNA speciation changes. God must keep exact editing controls when He speciates.
dhw: Once again he edits (not designs) speciation changes, so these can hardly be called “slight variations”. I pointed out to you that backups could only refer to errors involving disease and death, but you claimed he was not bothered about these. Why would he create backups if he was not bothered?
He is trying to protect the living but having backups, but you asked about Him stepping in and correcting, and we know he doesn't.
dhw: And we haven’t even mentioned your passionate defence of the evolutionary role played by chance (“Chance can play a role!!!”) countered by “There is no reliance on chance”. I’m sorry, but I do not think you have “completely reached a coherent theory”, or that the contradictions are due to bias on my part.DAVID: With your help I've totally reconsidered my thinking about chance in regard to speciation. God accepts only minor variations in genome evolutionary changes. He is a precise editor.
dhw: It’s comforting to know that these discussions can result in such a U-turn. Perhaps eventually you will also sort out the muddle of what your God can and can’t control, and what he edits and what he designs. And perhaps you will even consider the possibility that your God deliberately invented a system in which molecules went their own free way, because that was what he wanted. At least this would restore some of the dignity you have tried so hard to take away from him – or have you also withdrawn your claim that you are “the one who is willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created”?
I don't know how all-everything God is as the Bible describes. You make Him very human as you describe His thinking. Why blame me? The quote is a concession. Errors exist during living and must have existed during evolution, and so I must account for them with God in charge.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: I am correcting your distorted understanding, since I have introduced the FACT that living molecules can make mistakes and, therefore, during evolution errors involving new speciation have to be edited and corrected by God. Bad mutations are simply deleted. There is a possibility of 'good' slight variation on what God planned, and I can see Him allowing it. Note, only a possibility this happens, but I have to accept that mutations are occasionally 'good' ( as science shows) and account for how God might handle them.
dhw: What “distorted understanding”? I have repeated your own words, and asked you whether they still apply. Your response is as confusing as ever. Instead of these errors changing the course of evolution, and possibly even “arranging” our own evolution, they have suddenly become a mere possibility of “slight variation”. And yet they also “involve new speciation”! How does new speciation mean slight variation? And why does he have to correct the errors if they are good and he allows them go through? This whole theory is becoming more and more nebulous and confusing, but you accuse me of distorting it!
DAVID: Not nebulous to me. I am working on a very coherent theory to include errors in the genome during evolution. And you are helping. Genome errors during evolution require God editing is a simple response.
Glad to help. Here comes more help. Your response completely ignores my questions! How does “new speciation” come to mean “slight variation”, and why must God correct or “edit” errors that are good? What is there to correct? Previously he “allowed” them to survive, and he destroyed the bad ones. This is no different from Darwin’s natural selection, in which beneficial mutations survive and non-beneficial ones do not survive. Your God’s role in speciation therefore becomes as passive (i.e. non-designing) as that of natural selection.
[…]
dhw: I pointed out to you that backups could only refer to errors involving disease and death, but you claimed he was not bothered about these. Why would he create backups if he was not bothered?
DAVID: He is trying to protect the living by having backups, but you asked about Him stepping in and correcting, and we know he doesn't.
You said he wasn’t bothered about the disease-causing errors during pre-sapiens evolution. Once more, please answer the question: why would he have created backups if he was not bothered?
dhw: And we haven’t even mentioned your passionate defence of the evolutionary role played by chance (“Chance can play a role!!!”) countered by “There is no reliance on chance”.
DAVID: With your help I've totally reconsidered my thinking about chance in regard to speciation. God accepts only minor variations in genome evolutionary changes. He is a precise editor.
See above re minor variations and “editing”.
dhw: It’s comforting to know that these discussions can result in such a U-turn. Perhaps eventually you will also sort out the muddle of what your God can and can’t control, and what he edits and what he designs. And perhaps you will even consider the possibility that your God deliberately invented a system in which molecules went their own free way, because that was what he wanted. At least this would restore some of the dignity you have tried so hard to take away from him – or have you also withdrawn your claim that you are “the one who is willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created”?
DAVID: I don't know how all-everything God is as the Bible describes. You make Him very human as you describe His thinking. Why blame me? The quote is a concession. Errors exist during living and must have existed during evolution, and so I must account for them with God in charge.
Why is it more “human” for him to create what he wanted to create than for him to create what he didn’t want to create and what he therefore had to keep trying (often unsuccessfully) to correct? The quote is a concession to what? You keep telling us he is all-powerful, but then you keep repeating that he can’t control the errors, which means he is not all-powerful. Furthermore, you keep repeating that he EDITS errors that lead to speciation. And so let me repeat: Firstly, errors involving speciation cannot be “slight variations”. Secondly, you don’t “edit” something that is already beneficial. Thirdly, “editing” means he does not design species but relies on chance to give him something to work on (except that there is no need for him to work on it), whereas elsewhere you keep telling us he directly designed all species. I hope this will help you to a clearer presentation of your so far very incoherent new theory!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, August 21, 2020, 19:07 (1553 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Not nebulous to me. I am working on a very coherent theory to include errors in the genome during evolution. And you are helping. Genome errors during evolution require God editing is a simple response.
dhw: Glad to help. Here comes more help. Your response completely ignores my questions!
I've edited out your reply as totally off base. Good mutations during evolution that fit God's plans may be considered as slightly different but acceptable and be allowed. All bad mutations are removed ( and we know most mutations are bad).
dhw: I pointed out to you that backups could only refer to errors involving disease and death, but you claimed he was not bothered about these. Why would he create backups if he was not bothered?DAVID: He is trying to protect the living by having backups, but you asked about Him stepping in and correcting, and we know he doesn't.
dhw: You said he wasn’t bothered about the disease-causing errors during pre-sapiens evolution. Once more, please answer the question: why would he have created backups if he was not bothered?
Don't you consider Him a kindly God? Death is programmed in but organisms have to exist to create the giant diverse bush, and the ecosystems, that also have to evolve and create top predators as complete systems. In life the backup systems are 99.9999+% accurate.
dhw: It’s comforting to know that these discussions can result in such a U-turn. Perhaps eventually you will also sort out the muddle of what your God can and can’t control, and what he edits and what he designs. And perhaps you will even consider the possibility that your God deliberately invented a system in which molecules went their own free way, because that was what he wanted. At least this would restore some of the dignity you have tried so hard to take away from him – or have you also withdrawn your claim that you are “the one who is willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and he can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created”?DAVID: I don't know how all-everything God is as the Bible describes. You make Him very human as you describe His thinking. Why blame me? The quote is a concession. Errors exist during living and must have existed during evolution, and so I must account for them with God in charge.
dhw: The quote is a concession to what? You keep telling us he is all-powerful, but then you keep repeating that he can’t control the errors, which means he is not all-powerful.
I've introduced the FACT of molecular error. I've, satisfactorily for me, theorized how He would approach this problem during evolution. Tight editing to make sure evolution follows His plans.
dhw: Furthermore, you keep repeating that he EDITS errors that lead to speciation. And so let me repeat: Firstly, errors involving speciation cannot be “slight variations”. Secondly, you don’t “edit” something that is already beneficial. Thirdly, “editing” means he does not design species but relies on chance to give him something to work on (except that there is no need for him to work on it), whereas elsewhere you keep telling us he directly designed all species. I hope this will help you to a clearer presentation of your so far very incoherent new theory!
Forget the past as I worked it out. All stages are designed completely by Him as shown above. New mutations that fit His plans, but are very slightly different can theoretically be allowed by God as long as the planned overall course of evolution from bacteria to humans is not changed. Your confusion has helped a great deal, showing me where I have not explained errors in evolution with clarity. The errors in current life demand a consideration of errors during evolution. We have done that.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, August 21, 2020, 19:40 (1553 days ago) @ David Turell
In this study errors in mouse DNA were corrected by humans. If we can do it, God could certainly have edited DNA during evolution:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-tiny-therapeutic-delivery-safely-genetic.html
"Inserting genetic material into the body to treat diseases caused by gene mutations can work, scientists say—but getting those materials to the right place safely is tricky.
"Scientists report today in the journal Science Advances that the lipid-based nanoparticles they engineered, carrying two sets of protein-making instructions, showed in animal studies that they have the potential to function as therapies for two genetic disorders.
"In one experiment, the payload-containing nanoparticles prompted the production of the missing clotting protein in mice that are models for hemophilia. In another test, the nanoparticles' cargo reduced the activation level of a gene that, when overactive, interferes with clearance of cholesterol from the bloodstream.
***
"This work builds upon a collection of lipid-like spherical compounds that Dong and colleagues had previously developed to deliver messenger RNA. This line of particles was designed to target disorders involving genes that are expressed in the liver.
"The team experimented with various structural changes to those particles, effectively adding "tails" of different types of molecules to them, before landing on the structure that made the materials the most stable. The tiny compounds have a big job to do: embarking on a journey through the bloodstream, carrying molecules to the target location, releasing the ideal concentration of messenger RNA cargo at precisely the right time and safely degrading.
"The tests in mice suggested these particles could do just that.
Comment: If we can do it, it should be no problem for God.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: Not nebulous to me. I am working on a very coherent theory to include errors in the genome during evolution. And you are helping. Genome errors during evolution require God editing is a simple response.
dhw: Glad to help. Here comes more help. Your response completely ignores my questions!
DAVID: I've edited out your reply as totally off base.
Later you write: “Forget the past as I worked it out.” And “Your confusion has helped a great deal, showing me where I have not explained errors in evolution with clarity.” My reply was in the form of two highly relevant questions concerning confusing statements in the same post: How does “new speciation” come to mean “slight variation”, and why must your God “edit” errors that are already good?
Our discussion began a month ago, when I wrote: “It is clearly absurd to argue that God could not control or correct his errors in the system he created, but then he gave cells instructions on how to control or correct the errors he could not control or correct when he created the system.” This according to you showed “a total misunderstanding of the problem”. Since then you have lurched from one contradiction to another, but even now, when I point them out, I am “totally off base”, and I am confused because you have not explained your theory “with clarity”. I’m sorry, but you have not explained your theory with clarity because it is riddled with contradictions.
Here is the theory you started out with: God designed the system, but the errors – which he could not control – were not his fault. There are two types of errors: those that affect evolution, and those that cause disease and death. The former, when beneficial, can change the course of evolution, and may even have “arranged our human evolution”, and God “allows” them to survive but destroys those that are not beneficial. (The same process as Darwin’s natural selection, and a clear argument against direct design of all species.) He was not bothered about the disease-causing errors, but provided backups and corrected what he could, which can only mean that he did bother. His lack of control showed that he was not all-powerful and was not all-knowing, and as for his reliance on chance: “What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God’s plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!” Note the emphatic punctuation.
Your current theory concerning evolution: All stages are designed completely by Him. The three question marks and three exclamation marks in defence of chance have magically evolved into: “There is no reliance on chance” (quoted from a different post), and God is back to being all-powerful and all-knowing. New mutations can theoretically be allowed by God as long as the planned overall course of evolution from bacteria to humans is not changed. Goodbye to mutations that change the course of evolution, except that in the same paragraph, errors involving “new speciation” became “slight variations”, and even now you write: “Tight editing to make sure evolution follows His plans.” Why do very slightly different mutations that do not change his planned course require tight editing? What must he corrected if, instead of changing the course of evolution, they have no effect on the course of evolution?
As far as the disease-causing errors are concerned, we are still left with the claim that he was and is not bothered about them, but he provided backups. You, who complain bitterly when I dare to propose theories entailing one or other of the human attributes you agree he probably has, then comment: “Don't you consider Him a kindly God?” Maybe he is. But how does that fit in with your repeated assertions that he didn’t care or bother about this category of “error”? And how come that he corrected what he could, left it to us to sort out the rest of the mess (he’s apparently washed his hands of it), and yet “in life the backup systems are 99.9999+% accurate”? How does a God who can’t control or even correct all these errors, but doesn’t care, come up with 99.9999+% corrections?
But apparently such questions are totally off base, and I am confused because you have not explained your theory “with clarity”. Your theory as it stands today leaves evolutionary errors with no significance at all, and disease-causing errors in a fog of uncertainty over your God’s attitude and degree of control. Maybe we should not just forget the past but forget the whole theory and move on.
xxxxxxx
DAVID: In this study errors in mouse DNA were corrected by humans. If we can do it, God could certainly have edited DNA during evolution:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-tiny-therapeutic-delivery-safely-genetic.html
QUOTE: "Inserting genetic material into the body to treat diseases caused by gene mutations can work, scientists say—but getting those materials to the right place safely is tricky.”
In your latest version, he didn’t need to edit DNA errors during evolution, but my question to you was: if he could control evolutionary errors, why couldn’t he control disease-causing errors? Your comment above should read: if humans can correct disease-causing errors, why couldn’t God?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, August 22, 2020, 15:19 (1552 days ago) @ dhw
An example of copy editing problems during life in mitochondria. A mouse study:
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6506/931.2?utm_campaign=ec_sci_2020-08-20
"Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a separate genome found in eukaryotic cells that is maternally inherited. Mutations in mtDNA underlie several human diseases, and the accumulation of these mutations has been associated with aging. Arbeithuber et al. used duplex sequencing to trace accumulation of spontaneous mtDNA mutations in oocytes, brain, and muscle cells of mice. Ten-month-old mothers showed a two- to threefold increased rate of mtDNA mutation compared with their 1-month-old pups. The authors found that the D-loop, a stretch of triple-stranded highly variable DNA in the noncoding region of the circular mtDNA where replication initiates, accumulated the most mutations. These mtDNA mutations occurred in patterns, indicating that they were caused by replication errors. It is possible that inheritance of aged mtDNA from older mothers may have health consequences for their offspring." (my bold)
Comment: Most genome mutations are copy errors. The actual rate is much higher than the final product, since an enormous number behind the scenes are corrected before final appearance in completed form.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, August 22, 2020, 22:06 (1552 days ago) @ David Turell
Double strand DNA breaks have cellular repair mechanisms. Thistudy has a method to follow the mechanisms:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200821141154.htm
"A new bioluminescent reporter that tracks DNA double stranded break (DSB) repair in cells has been developed by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. The international team's novel bioluminescent repair reporter (BLRR)-based system can be used to monitor DNA repair pathways directly in animals as well as cell lines. No such system previously existed for in vivo studies. These pathways play a crucial role in multiple conditions, including cancer.
"'One of the main reasons cancer cells are resistant to treatment is that they can inherently repair the DNA damage caused by radiation and chemotherapy," explains Christian Elias Badr, PhD, investigator in the Department of Neurology at MGH and co-senior author of the paper. The study's other co-senior author is Charles Pin-Kuang Lai, PhD, at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan.
***
"A cell may recognize the damage and use its intrinsic DNA damage response (DDR) to reduce DSB-caused cell death. As a result, the cancer cell's own DNA repair mechanisms can promote drug resistance and recurrence in some malignancies. Researchers would like to know more about them.
***
"BLRR uses secreted Gaussia and Vargula luciferases to detect homology-directed repair (HDR) and non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) -- the two major pathways to DSB repair. Using BLRR. Researchers can track HDR and NHEJ-related activities over time in cells. It also detects DSB repairs in xenografted tumors in vivo."
Comment: this article indirectly informs us that cells have more than one system to repair broken DNA double strands. These repair mechanisms must be present to maintain life.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
Double strand DNA breaks have cellular repair mechanisms. This study has a method to follow the mechanisms:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200821141154.htm
QUOTES: "'One of the main reasons cancer cells are resistant to treatment is that they can inherently repair the DNA damage caused by radiation and chemotherapy…"
"A cell may recognize the damage and use its intrinsic DNA damage response (DDR) to reduce DSB-caused cell death. As a result, the cancer cell's own DNA repair mechanisms can promote drug resistance and recurrence in some malignancies."
DAVID: this article indirectly informs us that cells have more than one system to repair broken DNA double strands. These repair mechanisms must be present to maintain life.
Have I missed something here? As I understand it, these particular repair mechanisms destroy life.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Sunday, August 23, 2020, 19:04 (1551 days ago) @ dhw
David: Double strand DNA breaks have cellular repair mechanisms. This study has a method to follow the mechanisms:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200821141154.htmQUOTES: "'One of the main reasons cancer cells are resistant to treatment is that they can inherently repair the DNA damage caused by radiation and chemotherapy…"
"A cell may recognize the damage and use its intrinsic DNA damage response (DDR) to reduce DSB-caused cell death. As a result, the cancer cell's own DNA repair mechanisms can promote drug resistance and recurrence in some malignancies."
DAVID: this article indirectly informs us that cells have more than one system to repair broken DNA double strands. These repair mechanisms must be present to maintain life.
dhw: Have I missed something here? As I understand it, these particular repair mechanisms destroy life.
This study was on cancer cells, but the mechanism is present in all cells, so when cancer appears it uses all available mechanisms present in cells to protect itself against treatment. I should have explained that.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Monday, August 24, 2020, 01:13 (1551 days ago) @ David Turell
Cells are constantly dying and reproducing and must do this as errorless as possible. Talbott's description illustrates:
https://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/bk/thesis_34.htm
"Every organism is continually dying in order to live. Breaking-down activities are prerequisites for building up. Complex molecules are synthesized, only to be degraded later, with their constituents recycled or excreted. In multicellular organisms such as vertebrates, many cells must die so that others may divide, differentiate, and proliferate. Many cancers reflect a failure to counterbalance proliferation with properly directed death processes.
"You and I have distinct fingers and toes thanks to massive cell death during development. The early embryo’s paddle-like hands give way to the more mature form as cells die and the spaces between our digits are “hollowed out”. In general, our various organs are sculpted through cell death as well as cell growth and multiplication. During development the body produces far more neurons than the adult will possess, and an estimated ninety-five percent of the cell population of the thymus gland dies off by the time the mature gland is formed.
"Despite all this life and death, I doubt whether anyone would be tempted to describe the embryo’s cells as “red in tooth and claw”. Nor do I think anyone would appeal to “survival of the fittest” or natural selection as a fundamental principle governing what goes on during normal development. The life and death of cells appears to be governed, rather, by the developing form of the whole in which they participate.
***
"How does the cell accomplish the task of DNA replication, or the repair of DNA lesions? How does a cell divide? How does it produce proteins? How does it derive energy for its actions through metabolism? And how does it regulate all these activities in relation to the needs of the whole cell and organism?
"Here’s just one example. A current challenge embraced by molecular biologists is to understand how hundreds of diverse and diffusible molecules in a watery medium come together and coordinate their interactions in order to carry out the intricate, extended narrative of RNA splicing. In this process they must remove sections of a complex RNA molecule and “stitch” the remaining pieces together in the extremely precise manner required to obtain a functional result. It must all be accomplished in just the right way to yield (through additional, equally elaborate processes) the exact form of the specific protein required right now, in this cell, as opposed to the somewhat different form that may be required later or in a different cell.
"There you see Weiss’ principles of micro-indeterminacy and macro-determinacy on vivid display. If we had to explain RNA splicing merely by summing up the individual, law-like behaviors of those hundreds of molecules, with all their degrees of freedom, we would know beyond any doubt: the exponentially multiplying random molecular deviations from the elaborate and drawn-out task at hand would quickly reduce the entire process to a chaotic mess so far as that task was concerned. This is simple physics and chemistry, which were not “made” to sustain meaningful narratives.
***
"Moreover, at the sub-cellular level we see molecules moving and interacting within a fluid medium in order to carry out carefully sequenced narratives — tasks so complex that they challenge our most sophisticated abilities to unravel and articulate their endless nuances. These narrative achievements, which might seem to require a remarkable and practiced synchronization of activities, are accomplished, as we saw a moment ago, despite the fact that the innumerable molecules involved possess many degrees of freedom as they diffuse through the cell’s plasm. And also despite the fact that the context-sensitive task at hand is never exactly the same in any two of the trillions of cells in our bodies, or at any two moments of a several-decades-long life. The rigidly defined and consistent structural constraints necessary for rendering the programmed operation of a computer reliable and mechanistic are altogether absent." (my bold)
Comment: These disconnected but profound excerpts from Talbott should be carefully read, and clearly explain why I am so concerned with error control. Despite constant death and reproduction the vast majority of all organisms live from birth to life without problems. It is due to instructive and editing mechanisms which help control the seeming chaos of the watery interior of the active cell. As I consider God the author of all this messy arrangement, it is my point that God created both life's instructed processes but also the error controls from the very advent/beginning of life. HE HAD TO or there would have been a very short tenure for life. The errors were not God's desire or any part of His intent. Life emerges from the actions and interactions of thousands of simultaneous molecular processes. We know of no other way it could have been designed. I will state that for God there was no other way. You cannot defend your constant inferences God desires errors either during evolution or during just living. No one knows the rate of protection from errors. My guess in in the trillions every day.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
DAVID: Cells are constantly dying and reproducing and must do this as errorless as possible. Talbott's description illustrates:
https://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/bk/thesis_34.htm
The whole article can be summed up by this one quote:
TALBOTT: These narrative achievements, which might seem to require a remarkable and practiced synchronization of activities, are accomplished, as we saw a moment ago, despite the fact that the innumerable molecules involved possess many degrees of freedom as they diffuse through the cell’s plasm.
The focus is on the success of the system, whereas you began our discussion by focusing on the errors. I cannot find a single reference here to your God correcting or editing errors he can/can’t control. Your own comment also lays stress on the success of the system, and I will reply point by point:
DAVID: These disconnected but profound excerpts from Talbott should be carefully read, and clearly explain why I am so concerned with error control. [dhw: No they don’t.] Despite constant death and reproduction the vast majority of all organisms live from birth to life without problems. [dhw: It is the problems that we are concerned with, and I’m surprised that as a doctor you do not count diseases as errors your God can’t/couldn’t correct and which apparently he has left us humans to grapple with. Earlier you also emphasized the huge role that errors played in the advance of evolution, but subsequently reduced this to “slight variations” which had no effect on evolution. See my final comment.] It is due to instructive and editing mechanisms which help control the seeming chaos of the watery interior of the active cell. As I consider God the author of all this messy arrangement, it is my point that God created both life's instructed processes but also the error controls from the very advent/beginning of life. HE HAD TO or there would have been a very short tenure for life. The errors were not God's desire or any part of His intent. [dhw: So he designed the system, did not want and could not control the errors, and yet simultaneously designed controls for the errors he could not control, many of which don't work so it's up to us to correct them. And don't forget that he required death - see below.] Life emerges from the actions and interactions of thousands of simultaneous molecular processes. We know of no other way it could have been designed. [dhw: Agreed. Maybe we are ignorant.] I will state that for God there was no other way. [dhw: Who knows?] You cannot defend your constant inferences God desires errors either during evolution or during just living.[dhw: Whoa! Nobody forced him to invent physical life and death! If he exists, that was what he wanted. You believe he is immortal and conscious, so if he’d wanted an immortal, conscious being, he could have invented one – and some folk believe he has done just that, when they talk of our “immortal soul”. Why are you so rigidly opposed to the idea that whatever he produced is what he WANTED to produce?] No one knows the rate of protection from errors. My guess in in the trillions every day. [dhw: Not bad for a God who can’t control the errors. But in any case, this discussion centres upon the errors (a) against which we are NOT protected: those that still cause disease and death and which he has left to us to correct, and (b) which earlier in your posts changed the course of evolution but now play an insignificant role, which makes me wonder why you bothered to mention them in the first place.]
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Monday, August 24, 2020, 15:28 (1550 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Cells are constantly dying and reproducing and must do this as errorless as possible. Talbott's description illustrates:
https://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/bk/thesis_34.htmThe whole article can be summed up by this one quote:
TALBOTT: These narrative achievements, which might seem to require a remarkable and practiced synchronization of activities, are accomplished, as we saw a moment ago, despite the fact that the innumerable molecules involved possess many degrees of freedom as they diffuse through the cell’s plasm.
dhw: The focus is on the success of the system, whereas you began our discussion by focusing on the errors. I cannot find a single reference here to your God correcting or editing errors he can/can’t control. Your own comment also lays stress on the success of the system, and I will reply point by point:
DAVID: These disconnected but profound excerpts from Talbott should be carefully read, and clearly explain why I am so concerned with error control. [dhw: No they don’t.] Despite constant death and reproduction the vast majority of all organisms live from birth to life without problems. [dhw: It is the problems that we are concerned with, and I’m surprised that as a doctor you do not count diseases as errors your God can’t/couldn’t correct and which apparently he has left us humans to grapple with. Earlier you also emphasized the huge role that errors played in the advance of evolution, but subsequently reduced this to “slight variations” which had no effect on evolution. See my final comment.] It is due to instructive and editing mechanisms which help control the seeming chaos of the watery interior of the active cell. As I consider God the author of all this messy arrangement, it is my point that God created both life's instructed processes but also the error controls from the very advent/beginning of life. HE HAD TO or there would have been a very short tenure for life. The errors were not God's desire or any part of His intent. [dhw: So he designed the system, did not want and could not control the errors, and yet simultaneously designed controls for the errors he could not control, many of which don't work so it's up to us to correct them. And don't forget that he required death - see below.] Life emerges from the actions and interactions of thousands of simultaneous molecular processes. We know of no other way it could have been designed. [dhw: Agreed. Maybe we are ignorant.] I will state that for God there was no other way. [dhw: Who knows?] You cannot defend your constant inferences God desires errors either during evolution or during just living.[dhw: Whoa! Nobody forced him to invent physical life and death! If he exists, that was what he wanted. You believe he is immortal and conscious, so if he’d wanted an immortal, conscious being, he could have invented one – and some folk believe he has done just that, when they talk of our “immortal soul”. Why are you so rigidly opposed to the idea that whatever he produced is what he WANTED to produce?] No one knows the rate of protection from errors. My guess in in the trillions every day. [dhw: Not bad for a God who can’t control the errors. But in any case, this discussion centres upon the errors (a) against which we are NOT protected: those that still cause disease and death and which he has left to us to correct, and (b) which earlier in your posts changed the course of evolution but now play an insignificant role, which makes me wonder why you bothered to mention them in the first place.]
Your bias misses the way I view the problem in a totally and apparently incomprehensible way to you. We live with a biological system in which molecules are free to make mistakes. The problem for one (not you) who believes in an all-powerful (probable for me) God, it requires an explanation I can live with. I had to work it out and I have for my own satisfaction with entries on this website. The massive editing systems tell me God obviously knew of the problem in advance (how could He not?) and prepared life for it. I used Talbott from one point of my view. You don't interpret Talbott as ID and I do. He is amazed at the very purposeful activities in cells, and agency, but never a mention of God. I have no idea what he believe at that level of thought. He never allows it.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
DAVID: Your bias misses the way I view the problem in a totally and apparently incomprehensible way to you. We live with a biological system in which molecules are free to make mistakes. The problem for one (not you) who believes in an all-powerful (probable for me) God, it requires an explanation I can live with. I had to work it out and I have for my own satisfaction with entries on this website.
There is no point in going through all your statements and all my comments from the last post, as this post will lead to the same set of problems. I don’t know why you accuse me of bias just because I point out all the contradictions in your arguments. You have yourself already withdrawn some of them, though not all: 1) your God – who varies between being all-powerful and not being all-powerful (I see you’re back to all-powerful today), all-knowing and not all-knowing, controls errors which he can’t control. 2) He isn’t bothered about disease-causing errors, but he provides backups to correct them (even though he can’t correct them). He doesn’t care, but he does care. 3) Errors change the course of evolution, even to the extent that they may have organized our own evolution, and all he can do is “allow” them to survive if he likes them and kill them off if he doesn’t (God as natural selector), but such errors now turn out to be minor variations, and chance – at one time championed with multiple exclamation marks – now plays no role, so why bother to mention the evolutionary errors (random mutations) in the first place?
DAVID: The massive editing systems tell me God obviously knew of the problem in advance (how could He not?) and prepared life for it.
How could he prepare life for it if he himself couldn’t control/correct mistakes, and now leaves it to us to sort out the mess? You have forgotten about death, which was “required” – obviously by him, since nobody else was around. If he required it, don’t you think his design would have deliberately been made to cause it and to cause the diseases (errors) that lead to death?
DAVID: I used Talbott from one point of my view. You don't interpret Talbott as ID and I do. He is amazed at the very purposeful activities in cells, and agency, but never a mention of God. I have no idea what he believe at that level of thought. He never allows it.
I think we are all amazed at the purposeful activities of cells. They might even be interpreted as evidence that cells are intelligent. But the issue here is your attempt to find an explanation of the errors that you can “live with”. I don’t think it’s my bias that has created all the above confusion, and Talbott is a red herring. See the other thread for more confusion.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 25, 2020, 19:06 (1549 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your bias misses the way I view the problem in a totally and apparently incomprehensible way to you. We live with a biological system in which molecules are free to make mistakes. The problem for one (not you) who believes in an all-powerful (probable for me) God, it requires an explanation I can live with. I had to work it out and I have for my own satisfaction with entries on this website.
dhw: There is no point in going through all your statements and all my comments from the last post, as this post will lead to the same set of problems. I don’t know why you accuse me of bias just because I point out all the contradictions in your arguments. You have yourself already withdrawn some of them, though not all: 1) your God – who varies between being all-powerful and not being all-powerful (I see you’re back to all-powerful today), all-knowing and not all-knowing, controls errors which he can’t control. 2) He isn’t bothered about disease-causing errors, but he provides backups to correct them (even though he can’t correct them). He doesn’t care, but he does care. 3) Errors change the course of evolution, even to the extent that they may have organized our own evolution, and all he can do is “allow” them to survive if he likes them and kill them off if he doesn’t (God as natural selector), but such errors now turn out to be minor variations, and chance – at one time championed with multiple exclamation marks – now plays no role, so why bother to mention the evolutionary errors (random mutations) in the first place?
I've explained it clearly. The ability to have errors bothered me, so I had to work out a theory had settled my mind by bouncing it off your skepticism which in its confusion is quite helpful. During evolution minor mutation variations can be adopted/allowed as of no consequence, and major off-course ones are edited out as God speciates the next stage of evolution of all species. During life the errors are in the main controlled by editing systems provided by God from the beginning of life who knew full well about the problem.
DAVID: The massive editing systems tell me God obviously knew of the problem in advance (how could He not?) and prepared life for it.dhw: How could he prepare life for it if he himself couldn’t control/correct mistakes, and now leaves it to us to sort out the mess? You have forgotten about death, which was “required” – obviously by him, since nobody else was around. If he required it, don’t you think his design would have deliberately been made to cause it and to cause the diseases (errors) that lead to death?
Your usual confusion. Death is required as we both agree, but living organisms living as long as they can is also required. Please remember our bodies are constantly in massive turn over as cells are replaced constantly, but you and I look in the mirror and see the same image. Why? God's error-correction editing systems work so well. Yet errors slip in that we have the smarts to correct in large part.
DAVID: I used Talbott from one point of my view. You don't interpret Talbott as ID and I do. He is amazed at the very purposeful activities in cells, and agency, but never a mention of God. I have no idea what he believe at that level of thought. He never allows it.dhw: I think we are all amazed at the purposeful activities of cells. They might even be interpreted as evidence that cells are intelligent. But the issue here is your attempt to find an explanation of the errors that you can “live with”. I don’t think it’s my bias that has created all the above confusion, and Talbott is a red herring. See the other thread for more confusion.
As stated above I'm no longer puzzled and like my explanations. Talbott is no red herring. He expresses the organized chaos of the cell interior beautifully, which is what leads to molecular errors.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
dhw: I don’t know why you accuse me of bias just because I point out all the contradictions in your arguments. You have yourself already withdrawn some of them, though not all: 1) your God – who varies between being all-powerful and not being all-powerful (I see you’re back to all-powerful today), all-knowing and not all-knowing, controls errors which he can’t control. 2) He isn’t bothered about disease-causing errors, but he provides backups to correct them (even though he can’t correct them). He doesn’t care, but he does care. 3) Errors change the course of evolution, even to the extent that they may have organized our own evolution, and all he can do is “allow” them to survive if he likes them and kill them off if he doesn’t (God as natural selector), but such errors now turn out to be minor variations, and chance – at one time championed with multiple exclamation marks – now plays no role, so why bother to mention the evolutionary errors (random mutations) in the first place?
DAVID: I've explained it clearly. The ability to have errors bothered me, so I had to work out a theory had settled my mind by bouncing it off your skepticism which in its confusion is quite helpful. During evolution minor mutation variations can be adopted/allowed as of no consequence, and major off-course ones are edited out as God speciates the next stage of evolution of all species. During life the errors are in the main controlled by editing systems provided by God from the beginning of life who knew full well about the problem.
I’m a little surprised to see your blatant contradictions described in terms of my confusion, but we’ll let that pass. If evolutionary errors are of no consequence, I don't know why they bothered you. The “errors” that cause disease and death bother us all. I still don’t understand how you can say in one breath that your God can’t control them, but he can control them by means of editing systems, but the thought occurs to me that what you meant is that he can’t PREVENT them. I hope that helps. But if he installed editing systems from the beginning of life, surely they should have edited out the errors before they even appeared! For example, cancer is a typical “error”. Clearly he did NOT install an editing system to remove the cancerous cells. And so he’s apparently left it to us to work out an “editing” system. Ditto every disease you can think of that requires human intervention. Your original explanation was that he didn’t care. What is your explanation now?
dhw: You have forgotten about death, which was “required” – obviously by him, since nobody else was around. If he required it, don’t you think his design would have deliberately been made to cause it and to cause the diseases (errors) that lead to death?
DAVID: Your usual confusion. Death is required as we both agree, but living organisms living as long as they can is also required. Please remember our bodies are constantly in massive turn over as cells are replaced constantly, but you and I look in the mirror and see the same image. Why? God's error-correction editing systems work so well. Yet errors slip in that we have the smarts to correct in large part.
We see the same image because the system is working, not because this “editing system” is constantly correcting errors. The problem is errors that are not corrected (e.g. cancer), and lead to disease and death, which your God “required”. How could he have ensured death without ensuring that there were errors that could not be corrected?
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 26, 2020, 18:39 (1548 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I've explained it clearly. The ability to have errors bothered me, so I had to work out a theory had settled my mind by bouncing it off your skepticism which in its confusion is quite helpful. During evolution minor mutation variations can be adopted/allowed as of no consequence, and major off-course ones are edited out as God speciates the next stage of evolution of all species. During life the errors are in the main controlled by editing systems provided by God from the beginning of life who knew full well about the problem.
dhw: I’m a little surprised to see your blatant contradictions described in terms of my confusion, but we’ll let that pass. If evolutionary errors are of no consequence, I don't know why they bothered you. The “errors” that cause disease and death bother us all. I still don’t understand how you can say in one breath that your God can’t control them, but he can control them by means of editing systems, but the thought occurs to me that what you meant is that he can’t PREVENT them. I hope that helps. But if he installed editing systems from the beginning of life, surely they should have edited out the errors before they even appeared! For example, cancer is a typical “error”. Clearly he did NOT install an editing system to remove the cancerous cells. And so he’s apparently left it to us to work out an “editing” system. Ditto every disease you can think of that requires human intervention. Your original explanation was that he didn’t care. What is your explanation now?
The bold is quite surprising, and clearly shows how I have confused you. I've said all along, in my words, God couldn't prevent errors, which is the same as saying living molecules can make errors on their own in the high speed molecular living systems. God put in the editing systems because HE knew all of the problems all along, despite designing life the best He could. As for cancer there are many editing systems which are put in place to prevent them in the copy-error prevention role played during cell division by many parts of the mechanism. I finally have the sense that you seem to begin to understand what I am portraying. I still view Him as all-powerful considering all He has created. What He cann ot control are not warts!
dhw: You have forgotten about death, which was “required” – obviously by him, since nobody else was around. If he required it, don’t you think his design would have deliberately been made to cause it and to cause the diseases (errors) that lead to death?DAVID: Your usual confusion. Death is required as we both agree, but living organisms living as long as they can is also required. Please remember our bodies are constantly in massive turn over as cells are replaced constantly, but you and I look in the mirror and see the same image. Why? God's error-correction editing systems work so well. Yet errors slip in that we have the smarts to correct in large part.
dhw: We see the same image because the system is working, not because this “editing system” is constantly correcting errors. The problem is errors that are not corrected (e.g. cancer), and lead to disease and death, which your God “required”. How could he have ensured death without ensuring that there were errors that could not be corrected?
As usual you have forgotten parts of the issue. Look in the mirror. I do. We are both aging, and that is built in. We will pass away with or without errors.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
You had used the word “control” ambiguously to mean “prevent” and also to mean “make something do what you want it to do”. I should have cottoned on earlier. Matter settled. Thank you.
I then asked you to explain why he didn’t install an anti-cancer “editing systems” (along with editing systems for all the other diseases which continue to kills us). Your previous explanation was that he didn’t care.
DAVID: God put in the editing systems because He knew all of the problems all along, despite designing life the best He could. As for cancer there are many editing systems which are put in place to prevent them in the copy-error prevention role played during cell division by many parts of the mechanism. I finally have the sense that you seem to begin to understand what I am portraying. I still view Him as all-powerful considering all He has created. What He cannot control are not warts!
I don’t know what editing systems prevent cancer, but I do know that whatever systems there are have not prevented cancer, and we humans continue to look for means to prevent, control or cure it. It would appear then that the problem was not that he didn’t care, but he tried his best and failed. We are back to your God’s incompetence, although he is all-powerful when he is not incompetent. Except that we have another problem: death is “required”.
DAVID: Your usual confusion. Death is required as we both agree, but living organisms living as long as they can is also required. Please remember our bodies are constantly in massive turn over as cells are replaced constantly, but you and I look in the mirror and see the same image. Why? God's error-correction editing systems work so well. Yet errors slip in that we have the smarts to correct in large part.
dhw: We see the same image because the system is working, not because this “editing system” is constantly correcting errors. The problem is errors that are not corrected (e.g. cancer), and lead to disease and death, which your God “required”. How could he have ensured death without ensuring that there were errors that could not be corrected?
DAVID: As usual you have forgotten parts of the issue. Look in the mirror. I do. We are both aging, and that is built in. We will pass away with or without errors.
You have ignored my answer to your “mirror” argument, and totally ignored my question.
DAVID: Another molecular error leading to cancer:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-uncontrolled-molecule-rare-liver-cancer.html
DAVID: Here again we see that either a molecular error or a cancer-caused error can lead to uncontrolled cancer growth and spread. The controls are present at first, telling us God foresaw errors and tried to correct for them, both by the controls of cAMP and examples I've presented of editing.
Here we see again a clear example of your God’s incompetence, leaving us poor humans to try and do what he apparently couldn’t. If I believed in God, I could believe that he was capable of experimenting, of getting new ideas, of enjoying his creations, of deliberately leaving molecules and cells to do their own designing and make their own errors. But I would find it very hard to believe that he would be so incompetent as to try and correct mistakes he couldn’t prevent, fail, and simply leave it to us lesser beings to sort out the mess he had left behind.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Thursday, August 27, 2020, 15:37 (1547 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You had used the word “control” ambiguously to mean “prevent” and also to mean “make something do what you want it to do”. I should have cottoned on earlier. Matter settled. Thank you.
I then asked you to explain why he didn’t install an anti-cancer “editing systems” (along with editing systems for all the other diseases which continue to kills us). Your previous explanation was that he didn’t care.
Thank you for beginning to understand my view about errors..
DAVID: God put in the editing systems because He knew all of the problems all along, despite designing life the best He could. As for cancer there are many editing systems which are put in place to prevent them in the copy-error prevention role played during cell division by many parts of the mechanism. I finally have the sense that you seem to begin to understand what I am portraying. I still view Him as all-powerful considering all He has created. What He cannot control are not warts!dhw: I don’t know what editing systems prevent cancer, but I do know that whatever systems there are have not prevented cancer, and we humans continue to look for means to prevent, control or cure it. It would appear then that the problem was not that he didn’t care, but he tried his best and failed. We are back to your God’s incompetence, although he is all-powerful when he is not incompetent. Except that we have another problem: death is “required”.
Your 'new' take as usual is to denigrate God. The editing systems are 99.9999999+% perfect but reproduction is constant, so cancer turns up.
DAVID: Your usual confusion. Death is required as we both agree, but living organisms living as long as they can is also required. Please remember our bodies are constantly in massive turn over as cells are replaced constantly, but you and I look in the mirror and see the same image. Why? God's error-correction editing systems work so well. Yet errors slip in that we have the smarts to correct in large part.dhw: We see the same image because the system is working, not because this “editing system” is constantly correcting errors. The problem is errors that are not corrected (e.g. cancer), and lead to disease and death, which your God “required”. How could he have ensured death without ensuring that there were errors that could not be corrected?
DAVID: As usual you have forgotten parts of the issue. Look in the mirror. I do. We are both aging, and that is built in. We will pass away with or without errors.
dhw: You have ignored my answer to your “mirror” argument, and totally ignored my question.
Not ignored at all. Please recognize the point that aging itself without major disease exists. Many folks and animals just die from wearing out. We all have to die to make room. You may not like God for it, but aging is built in all by itself.
DAVID: Another molecular error leading to cancer:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-uncontrolled-molecule-rare-liver-cancer.html
DAVID: Here again we see that either a molecular error or a cancer-caused error can lead to uncontrolled cancer growth and spread. The controls are present at first, telling us God foresaw errors and tried to correct for them, both by the controls of cAMP and examples I've presented of editing.dhw: Here we see again a clear example of your God’s incompetence, leaving us poor humans to try and do what he apparently couldn’t. If I believed in God, I could believe that he was capable of experimenting, of getting new ideas, of enjoying his creations, of deliberately leaving molecules and cells to do their own designing and make their own errors. But I would find it very hard to believe that he would be so incompetent as to try and correct mistakes he couldn’t prevent, fail, and simply leave it to us lesser beings to sort out the mess he had left behind.
Your obvious bias is showing. I accept God despite all the warts you invent. Instead of expressing wonder at all He created, you carefully try and describe faults that don't exist in my mind. I didn't realize how narrow your concepts are.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
DAVID: God put in the editing systems because He knew all of the problems all along, despite designing life the best He could. As for cancer there are many editing systems which are put in place to prevent them in the copy-error prevention role played during cell division by many parts of the mechanism. I finally have the sense that you seem to begin to understand what I am portraying. I still view Him as all-powerful considering all He has created. What He cannot control are not warts!
dhw: I don’t know what editing systems prevent cancer, but I do know that whatever systems there are have not prevented cancer, and we humans continue to look for means to prevent, control or cure it. It would appear then that the problem was not that he didn’t care, but he tried his best and failed. We are back to your God’s incompetence, although he is all-powerful when he is not incompetent. Except that we have another problem: death is “required”.
DAVID: Your 'new' take as usual is to denigrate God. The editing systems are 99.9999999+% perfect but reproduction is constant, so cancer turns up.
This is not MY new take! It is you who tell us that he designed life “as best he could”, and despite your made-up statistic, you have told us that he has left us to correct the errors that he did not correct. I don’t know how cancer “turns up” out of constant reproduction (misprint?), but I do know that there are plenty of other diseases that also kill both young and old in spite of all the backups you say your God left behind to control the errors he could not control. The denigration of your God is yours – you have depicted him as incapable of controlling these disease-causing errors, whereas my proposal is that he deliberately created a system that would allow beneficial and deleterious changes, to produce the vast variety of life plus the ending of life through the “required” death. My God gets what he wants. Yours apparently doesn’t. Which of these is a denigration?
DAVID: Your usual confusion. Death is required as we both agree, but living organisms living as long as they can is also required. Please remember our bodies are constantly in massive turn over as cells are replaced constantly, but you and I look in the mirror and see the same image. Why? God's error-correction editing systems work so well. Yet errors slip in that we have the smarts to correct in large part.
dhw: We see the same image because the system is working, not because this “editing system” is constantly correcting errors. The problem is errors that are not corrected (e.g. cancer), and lead to disease and death, which your God “required”. How could he have ensured death without ensuring that there were errors that could not be corrected?
DAVID: As usual you have forgotten parts of the issue. Look in the mirror. I do. We are both aging, and that is built in. We will pass away with or without errors.
dhw: You have ignored my answer to your “mirror” argument, and totally ignored my question.
DAVID: Not ignored at all. Please recognize the point that aging itself without major disease exists. Many folks and animals just die from wearing out. We all have to die to make room. You may not like God for it, but aging is built in all by itself.
We are not discussing ageing or even death from old age! We are discussing death caused by diseases such as cancer, which your God tried to control and couldn’t. Originally, he didn’t care, but then in your "new take" you changed that to his lack of control, but never mind, it’s only 0.000001% of failure according to your research into causes of death.
dhw: If I believed in God, I could believe that he was capable of experimenting, of getting new ideas, of enjoying his creations, of deliberately leaving molecules and cells to do their own designing and make their own errors. But I would find it very hard to believe that he would be so incompetent as to try and correct mistakes he couldn’t prevent, fail, and simply leave it to us lesser beings to sort out the mess he had left behind.
DAVID: Your obvious bias is showing. I accept God despite all the warts you invent. Instead of expressing wonder at all He created, you carefully try and describe faults that don't exist in my mind. I didn't realize how narrow your concepts are.
The warts are your invention, not mine. It is you who have told us that he tried to correct the mistakes but couldn’t, and has left us to do our best. You know perfectly well that I share your wonderment at all the miracles of life, and I cannot see how my openness to such theistic theories as experimentation, having new ideas, enjoying his creations, giving organisms a free hand to do their own designing, make my concepts narrower than your own belief that your sometimes all-powerful God designs everything, produces errors which he can’t control, and faffs around for 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the one species (plus food supply) that he wants to design.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Friday, August 28, 2020, 22:58 (1546 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your 'new' take as usual is to denigrate God. The editing systems are 99.9999999+% perfect but reproduction is constant, so cancer turns up.
dhw: This is not MY new take! It is you who tell us that he designed life “as best he could”, and despite your made-up statistic, you have told us that he has left us to correct the errors that he did not correct. I don’t know how cancer “turns up” out of constant reproduction (misprint?),
The bolds show you don't understand the biochemistry of life. I've told you, the large majority of our cells are in constant cell division, and the made-up statistic is to try to give you an approximation of the magnitude of the needed editing protections to maintain proper DNA which is almost always what results.
dhw: ...my proposal is that he deliberately created a system that would allow beneficial and deleterious changes, to produce the vast variety of life plus the ending of life through the “required” death. My God gets what he wants. Yours apparently doesn’t. Which of these is a denigration?
Again denigration of my view of God:
DAVID: Your usual confusion. Death is required as we both agree, but living organisms living as long as they can is also required. Please remember our bodies are constantly in massive turn over as cells are replaced constantly, but you and I look in the mirror and see the same image. Why? God's error-correction editing systems work so well. Yet errors slip in that we have the smarts to correct in large part.dhw: We see the same image because the system is working, not because this “editing system” is constantly correcting errors. The problem is errors that are not corrected (e.g. cancer), and lead to disease and death, which your God “required”. How could he have ensured death without ensuring that there were errors that could not be corrected?
DAVID: As usual you have forgotten parts of the issue. Look in the mirror. I do. We are both aging, and that is built in. We will pass away with or without errors.
dhw: You have ignored my answer to your “mirror” argument, and totally ignored my question.
DAVID: Not ignored at all. Please recognize the point that aging itself without major disease exists. Many folks and animals just die from wearing out. We all have to die to make room. You may not like God for it, but aging is built in all by itself.
dhw: We are not discussing ageing or even death from old age! We are discussing death caused by diseases such as cancer, which your God tried to control and couldn’t. Originally, he didn’t care, but then in your "new take" you changed that to his lack of control, but never mind, it’s only 0.000001% of failure according to your research into causes of death.
What you fail to see as you criticize the picture of God I present, is the surprisingly great success rate of a living high-speed system in which protein molecules are relied upon to act correctly.
dhw: If I believed in God, I could believe that he was capable of experimenting, of getting new ideas, of enjoying his creations, of deliberately leaving molecules and cells to do their own designing and make their own errors. But I would find it very hard to believe that he would be so incompetent as to try and correct mistakes he couldn’t prevent, fail, and simply leave it to us lesser beings to sort out the mess he had left behind.DAVID: Your obvious bias is showing. I accept God despite all the warts you invent. Instead of expressing wonder at all He created, you carefully try and describe faults that don't exist in my mind. I didn't realize how narrow your concepts are.
dhw: The warts are your invention, not mine. It is you who have told us that he tried to correct the mistakes but couldn’t, and has left us to do our best. You know perfectly well that I share your wonderment at all the miracles of life, and I cannot see how my openness to such theistic theories as experimentation, having new ideas, enjoying his creations, giving organisms a free hand to do their own designing, make my concepts narrower than your own belief that your sometimes all-powerful God designs everything, produces errors which he can’t control, and faffs around for 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the one species (plus food supply) that he wants to design.
The bold is your total distortion of the points in this discussion I have presented. God does not 'PRODUCE ERRORS'. The problem is they cannot be prevented but can be edited out most of the time. Still your warts. Stick to wonderment with me. The red is your constant humanizing purposes for God we can not validate in any way.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
DAVID: Your 'new' take as usual is to denigrate God. The editing systems are 99.9999999+% perfect but reproduction is constant, so cancer turns up.
dhw: This is not MY new take! It is you who tell us that he designed life “as best he could”, and despite your made-up statistic, you have told us that he has left us to correct the errors that he did not correct. I don’t know how cancer “turns up” out of constant reproduction (misprint?).
DAVID: The bolds show you don't understand the biochemistry of life. I've told you, the large majority of our cells are in constant cell division, and the made-up statistic is to try to give you an approximation of the magnitude of the needed editing protections to maintain proper DNA which is almost always what results.
This whole thread is devoted to the errors, i.e. when things go wrong. I don’t know how cancer turns up out of constant reproduction. I thought it was the consequence of errors in the reproduction, as are so many of the diseases that your God tried but failed to control and so has left to us to correct. We've left Talbott behind now, and this thread is also devoted to “God’s error corrections”. If you wish to change it to “all the things God got right in the first place”, then start a new thread.
dhw: ...my proposal is that he deliberately created a system that would allow beneficial and deleterious changes, to produce the vast variety of life plus the ending of life through the “required” death. My God gets what he wants. Yours apparently doesn’t. Which of these is a denigration?
DAVID: Again denigration of my view of God.
And not denigration of God, as you put it. I regard your view of your God as denigrating, in so far as you have him designing a system which produces errors that he cannot prevent or control, even though he tries his best to do so. My proposal is that the system he designed is the system he wanted to design.
DAVID: Please recognize the point that aging itself without major disease exists. Many folks and animals just die from wearing out. We all have to die to make room. You may not like God for it, but aging is built in all by itself.
dhw: We are not discussing ageing or even death from old age! We are discussing death caused by diseases such as cancer, which your God tried to control and couldn’t. Originally, he didn’t care, but then in your "new take" you changed that to his lack of control, but never mind, it’s only 0.000001% of failure according to your research into causes of death.
David: What you fail to see as you criticize the picture of God I present, is the surprisingly great success rate of a living high-speed system in which protein molecules are relied upon to act correctly.
You said you started this thread because you wanted to find a way of explaining the errors. Now all you want to talk about are the successes.
DAVID: Your obvious bias is showing. I accept God despite all the warts you invent. Instead of expressing wonder at all He created, you carefully try and describe faults that don't exist in my mind. I didn't realize how narrow your concepts are.
dhw: The warts are your invention, not mine. It is you who have told us that he tried to correct the mistakes but couldn’t, and has left us to do our best. You know perfectly well that I share your wonderment at all the miracles of life, and I cannot see how my openness to such theistic theories as experimentation, having new ideas, enjoying his creations, giving organisms a free hand to do their own designing, make my concepts narrower than your own belief that your sometimes all-powerful God designs everything, produces errors which he can’t control, and faffs around for 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the one species (plus food supply) that he wants to design.
DAVID: The bold is your total distortion of the points in this discussion I have presented. God does not 'PRODUCE ERRORS'. The problem is they cannot be prevented but can be edited out most of the time. Still your warts. Stick to wonderment with me. The red is your constant humanizing purposes for God we can not validate in any way.
If God designed a system which produces errors, he produced errors even though he didn’t want to. This is hardly a total distortion. You started the thread hoping to explain the errors, and now that your explanations have created a mass of contradictions, all you want to talk about is what went right instead of what went wrong. I join you in wonderment at the former, but that is no reason for changing the subject. You grumbled at the narrowness of my concepts, and I have listed the broad variety of my concepts. The narrowness of your concepts, and the consequent accumulation of contradictions, is epitomized by your refusal to consider any proposal that endows God with any human attributes, although you agree that he probably has thought patterns and attributes similar to ours.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Saturday, August 29, 2020, 17:57 (1545 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The bolds show you don't understand the biochemistry of life. I've told you, the large majority of our cells are in constant cell division, and the made-up statistic is to try to give you an approximation of the magnitude of the needed editing protections to maintain proper DNA which is almost always what results.
dhw: This whole thread is devoted to the errors, i.e. when things go wrong. I don’t know how cancer turns up out of constant reproduction. I thought it was the consequence of errors in the reproduction, as are so many of the diseases that your God tried but failed to control and so has left to us to correct.
The point of the error discussion is to show you that despite the errors the vast majority of all organisms continue through their lives unchanged due to the excellent editing, the exact opposite of tack you take in your interpretations. Your bias is showing.
dhw: ...my proposal is that he deliberately created a system that would allow beneficial and deleterious changes, to produce the vast variety of life plus the ending of life through the “required” death. My God gets what he wants. Yours apparently doesn’t. Which of these is a denigration?DAVID: Again denigration of my view of God.
dhw: And not denigration of God, as you put it. I regard your view of your God as denigrating, in so far as you have him designing a system which produces errors that he cannot prevent or control, even though he tries his best to do so. My proposal is that the system he designed is the system he wanted to design.
Yes, it is His design. Concentrate on the amazing accuracy of his editing system.
David: What you fail to see as you criticize the picture of God I present, is the surprisingly great success rate of a living high-speed system in which protein molecules are relied upon to act correctly.You said you started this thread because you wanted to find a way of explaining the errors. Now all you want to talk about are the successes.
DAVID: Your obvious bias is showing. I accept God despite all the warts you invent. Instead of expressing wonder at all He created, you carefully try and describe faults that don't exist in my mind. I didn't realize how narrow your concepts are.
dhw: The warts are your invention, not mine. It is you who have told us that he tried to correct the mistakes but couldn’t, and has left us to do our best. You know perfectly well that I share your wonderment at all the miracles of life, and I cannot see how my openness to such theistic theories as experimentation, having new ideas, enjoying his creations, giving organisms a free hand to do their own designing, make my concepts narrower than your own belief that your sometimes all-powerful God designs everything, produces errors which he can’t control, and faffs around for 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the one species (plus food supply) that he wants to design.
DAVID: The bold is your total distortion of the points in this discussion I have presented. God does not 'PRODUCE ERRORS'. The problem is they cannot be prevented but can be edited out most of the time. Still your warts. Stick to wonderment with me. The red is your constant humanizing purposes for God we can not validate in any way.
dhw: If God designed a system which produces errors, he produced errors even though he didn’t want to. This is hardly a total distortion.
What a twisted line of thought. The errors are in His system, but that mean He caused them. Errors are accidents of function. If another car runs into yours is that your fault?
dhw: You started the thread hoping to explain the errors, and now that your explanations have created a mass of contradictions, all you want to talk about is what went right instead of what went wrong. I join you in wonderment at the former, but that is no reason for changing the subject. You grumbled at the narrowness of my concepts, and I have listed the broad variety of my concepts. The narrowness of your concepts, and the consequent accumulation of contradictions, is epitomized by your refusal to consider any proposal that endows God with any human attributes, although you agree that he probably has thought patterns and attributes similar to ours.
I'm sorry if I finally opened your mind to another aspect of God's biology. The negative reactions on your part are your confusion about God in general. Of course I look at the positive. That is my view. Your comments are continuously negative.
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
We've left Talbott behind, and this belongs to the "errors" thread, but we may as well carry on here.
dhw: This whole thread is devoted to the errors, i.e. when things go wrong. I don’t know how cancer turns up out of constant reproduction. I thought it was the consequence of errors in the reproduction, as are so many of the diseases that your God tried but failed to control and so has left to us to correct.
DAVID: The point of the error discussion is to show you that despite the errors the vast majority of all organisms continue through their lives unchanged due to the excellent editing, the exact opposite of tack you take in your interpretations. Your bias is showing.
What bias? A few days ago you wrote: “The ability to have errors bothered me, so I had to work out a theory that settled my mind by bouncing it off your scepticism which in its confusion is quite helpful.” The theory you came up with initially was that the evolutionary errors could change the course of evolution, so your God only allowed those that he thought were beneficial, and he didn’t care about the disease-causing errors, although he provided backups, but even these sometimes didn’t work. You asked me to forget all about the first theory, because you didn’t like to side with Darwin on the subject of random mutations and natural selection, or with me when I “bounced” back the image of a God who was not only incompetent but also uncaring. And so evolutionary errors turned into slight variations that we needn’t bother about, and disease-causing errors only amount to 0.0000001% of all errors, so we shouldn’t worry about them. What we should do is:
DAVID: Concentrate on the amazing accuracy of his editing system.
You were bothered by the errors and set out to find a theory that would settle your mind. Congratulations. You have settled your mind by deciding not to bother about the errors at all and just to focus on all the successes. Even better, having raised the problem, you can now blame me for bothering about it.
DAVID: Your obvious bias is showing. I accept God despite all the warts you invent. Instead of expressing wonder at all He created, you carefully try and describe faults that don't exist in my mind. I didn't realize how narrow your concepts are.
dhw: The warts are your invention, not mine. It is you who have told us that he tried to correct the mistakes but couldn’t, and has left us to do our best. You know perfectly well that I share your wonderment at all the miracles of life, and I cannot see how my openness to such theistic theories as experimentation, having new ideas, enjoying his creations, giving organisms a free hand to do their own designing, make my concepts narrower than your own belief that your sometimes all-powerful God designs everything, produces errors which he can’t control, and faffs around for 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the one species (plus food supply) that he wants to design.
DAVID: The bold is your total distortion of the points in this discussion I have presented. God does not 'PRODUCE ERRORS'. The problem is they cannot be prevented but can be edited out most of the time. Still your warts. Stick to wonderment with me. The red is your constant humanizing purposes for God we can not validate in any way.
dhw: If God designed a system which produces errors, he produced errors even though he didn’t want to. This is hardly a total distortion.
Re humanizing, see “Back to David’s Theory of Evolution”.
DAVID: What a twisted line of thought. The errors are in His system, but that [doesn’t] mean He caused them. Errors are accidents of function. If another car runs into yours is that your fault?
Silly analogy. If someone designs a car with "errors" that make it break down, whose fault is it?
Back to David's theory of evolution: Talbott on cell death
by David Turell , Sunday, August 30, 2020, 19:06 (1544 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your obvious bias is showing. I accept God despite all the warts you invent. Instead of expressing wonder at all He created, you carefully try and describe faults that don't exist in my mind. I didn't realize how narrow your concepts are.
dhw: The warts are your invention, not mine. It is you who have told us that he tried to correct the mistakes but couldn’t, and has left us to do our best. You know perfectly well that I share your wonderment at all the miracles of life, and I cannot see how my openness to such theistic theories as experimentation, having new ideas, enjoying his creations, giving organisms a free hand to do their own designing, make my concepts narrower than your own belief that your sometimes all-powerful God designs everything, produces errors which he can’t control, and faffs around for 3.X billion years directly designing anything but the one species (plus food supply) that he wants to design.
DAVID: The bold is your total distortion of the points in this discussion I have presented. God does not 'PRODUCE ERRORS'. The problem is they cannot be prevented but can be edited out most of the time. Still your warts. Stick to wonderment with me. The red is your constant humanizing purposes for God we can not validate in any way.
dhw: If God designed a system which produces errors, he produced errors even though he didn’t want to. This is hardly a total distortion.
Re humanizing, see “Back to David’s Theory of Evolution”.DAVID: What a twisted line of thought. The errors are in His system, but that [doesn’t] mean He caused them. Errors are accidents of function. If another car runs into yours is that your fault?
dhw: Silly analogy. If someone designs a car with "errors" that make it break down, whose fault is it?
Still confused. I described an accidental happening, not design, which you avoided answering. No one designs a car with errors, but they are discovered and corrected by recalls. God's editing system shows He knew molecules would make errors by mistake. Those mistakes are not God's fault. The molecules are under precise instructions to follow. And they do the vast majority of time.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, August 22, 2020, 20:54 (1552 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Our discussion began a month ago,.. I’m sorry, but you have not explained your theory with clarity because it is riddled with contradictions.
Your current theory concerning evolution: All stages are designed completely by Him. The three question marks and three exclamation marks in defence of chance have magically evolved into: “There is no reliance on chance” (quoted from a different post), and God is back to being all-powerful and all-knowing. New mutations can theoretically be allowed by God as long as the planned overall course of evolution from bacteria to humans is not changed.
That is the way I have always thought, but recognizing DNA molecules do make mistakes, they have to factored into the initial concept that He pre-programmed at the start of life and also dabbled as He spotted adaptations that might direct evolution going off course. I view God as in charge of all speciation. He has to change an earlier species to the next. Therefore, since species adapt to new problems, God must review those alterations to be sure they are on course to the next planned step. Pre-programming is supported by Behe's work on devolving DNA and by the comparative anatomy of species as they evolve. Certainly there is common descent. To continue the process of progressive evolution, God must review DNA coding at all speciation stages. Therefore dabbling must exist in the form of critical editing, allowing minor variations that fit the planned course and removing bad mutations. Based on Behe's work, most speciation should be God removing code, but it is possible to accept that He may add additional coding to keep everything on course. I still stick to the idea that the God of the Bible may not be so all powerful, that He doesn't have to correct Himself in pre-planned code.
dhw: As far as the disease-causing errors are concerned, we are still left with the claim that he was and is not bothered about them, but he provided backups. You, who complain bitterly when I dare to propose theories entailing one or other of the human attributes you agree he probably has, then comment: “Don't you consider Him a kindly God?” Maybe he is. But how does that fit in with your repeated assertions that he didn’t care or bother about this category of “error”? And how come that he corrected what he could, left it to us to sort out the rest of the mess (he’s apparently washed his hands of it), and yet “in life the backup systems are 99.9999+% accurate”? How does a God who can’t control or even correct all these errors, but doesn’t care, come up with 99.9999+% corrections?
Please remember what I present. We cannot live, life cannot go on, because large parts of our bodies are constantly in reproduction by cell division. We must have those backup editing controls, and obviously God understood it as part of my theory about my God. The bold is your distorted interpretation. He cared about us continuing to live or life would have ended in nothing but endless errors. Not the endpoint He desired. What I said was He didn't care if some mistakes caused death, which is/was required , as you have agreed.
xxxxxxx
DAVID: In this study errors in mouse DNA were corrected by humans. If we can do it, God could certainly have edited DNA during evolution:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-tiny-therapeutic-delivery-safely-genetic.htmlQUOTE: "Inserting genetic material into the body to treat diseases caused by gene mutations can work, scientists say—but getting those materials to the right place safely is tricky.”
dhw: In your latest version, he didn’t need to edit DNA errors during evolution,
The bold is absolutely wrong. He fiercely edited DNA during evolution.
dhw: but my question to you was: if he could control evolutionary errors, why couldn’t he control disease-causing errors? Your comment above should read: if humans can correct disease-causing errors, why couldn’t God?
Evolution is over. Death is required now and during evolution. During evolution God did not stop fatal DNA mistakes (cancer), as shown. We are in charge now using the giant brains God gave us to learn how to do the necessary corrections as far as we can.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: You still don't seem to understand molecular errors. […] God cannot control their mistakes, and He knew it as He created life.
Which errors are you talking about – evolutionary or disease-causing? According to you, your no longer all-powerful God was able to destroy evolutionary errors he didn’t like, but he couldn’t destroy all the disease-causing ones and so had to provide backups, but even those didn’t always work.
DAVID: He didn't want them, which is why we see the vastly complex editing systems that are present during reproduction of cell splitting. Life with error corrections had to be designed all at once at the beginning of life or nothing would have survived.
This is getting very confusing. He had to design a system full of errors (presumably the disease-causing category) he didn’t want and couldn’t control, and so at the same time he designed corrections to the errors (= he could control them). Why did/do the errors persist?
DAVID: Note output of reproduction in cell splitting is 99.999999.....+% accurate because of the editing.
What “editing”? If “life with error corrections had to be designed all at once at the beginning of life”, when and what did he edit? What is this 99.99+% based on? You wrote that “autoimmune diseases are mistakes of the genetic immune system” which we’ve been left to correct, so it appears that these errors only constitute 0.000001%of the system your God designed in order to give and maintain life and which he already corrected at the beginning of life, though actually he didn’t.
DAVID: I see my purposeful God not wanting errors at all, while your weak mamby-pamby humanized God creates a diverse unorganized bush by accidents/ errors.
Your purposeful God designs something he doesn’t want, and has to correct whatever he can. Apparently this makes him strong, whereas designing something that would give him what he wants (a diverse bush of life forms that come and go) makes him weak and nambypamby.
DAVID: And we also know through Behe, most advances are precise DNA deletions. Factor these facts into your answer, as I do.
dhw: How does Behe’s theory invalidate the theory of cellular intelligence? If your God could delete DNA, so could intelligent cells.
DAVID: The cells would have to foretell their future needs. Not likely.
No they wouldn’t. The cells would restructure themselves when new conditions required change or offered new opportunities. Cells do not restructure themselves in advance of new requirements. You have confirmed this:
DAVID: I view God as in charge of all speciation. He has to change an earlier species to the next. Therefore, since species adapt to new problems, God must review those alterations to be sure they are on course to the next planned step.
You now have him changing earlier species and then reviewing his own changes (alterations) to be sure he hasn’t messed up his own plans! Or could you mean that they made their own changes as they adapted to new problems (enter cellular intelligence) or changed by random mutations, so that he had to decide whether to allow them to survive (out goes design)?
DAVID: Pre-programming is supported by Behe's work on devolving DNA and by the comparative anatomy of species as they evolve. Certainly there is common descent.
Does Behe tell you God preplanned every new response to every new problem? And were the first cells really born with potential hands, wings, fins, but subsequently cell communities discarded whichever of these they didn’t need? Comparative anatomy simply shows that once a new organ proved itself to be useful, it underwent all kinds of variations as life forms adapted to new conditions.
DAVID: I still stick to the idea that the God of the Bible may not be so all powerful, that He doesn't have to correct Himself in pre-planned code.
I like it. A nice piece of “humanizing”. If your God now has to correct himself, you might just as well have him experimenting, or getting new ideas as he goes along. But in the past, you insisted on sticking to the all-powerful God of the Bible.
dhw: As far as the disease-causing errors are concerned, we are still left with the claim that he was and is not bothered about them, but he provided backups.
DAVID: He cared about us continuing to live or life would have ended in nothing but endless errors. Not the endpoint He desired. What I said was He didn't care if some mistakes caused death, which is/was required , as you have agreed.
And later: Death is required now and during evolution. During evolution God did not stop fatal DNA mistakes (cancer), as shown. We are in charge now using the giant brains God gave us to learn how to do the necessary corrections as far as we can.
Our endpoint is death, and since it is required, are you telling us that your God did or did not deliberately design “errors” (including mistakes of the genetic immune system) that can lead to death? Did he want disease or didn’t he? Has he left us to correct mistakes he couldn’t correct himself, or to correct mistakes he designed to kill us? Did/does he care or didn’t/doesn’t he? In response, you asked if I didn’t consider him “a kindly God”. A nice piece of “humanizing”
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Sunday, August 23, 2020, 18:57 (1551 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Note output of reproduction in cell splitting is 99.999999.....+% accurate because of the editing.
dhw: What “editing”? If “life with error corrections had to be designed all at once at the beginning of life”, when and what did he edit? What is this 99.99+% based on?
Scientific study of the editing process. it is extremely exact.
DAVID: I see my purposeful God not wanting errors at all,dhw: Your purposeful God designs something he doesn’t want, and has to correct whatever he can.
I can't seem to get through your thick biases the following facts on which to base a theory; in the biology we study today we find massive editing systems to make sure DNA is copied properly. it makes it obvious God knew the errors would occur since He is relying on protein molecules to exactly follow instructions as they performed their duties and mistakes might and would occur under very high speed processes. It means that every species designed from the start of life had the editing systems, or life would not exist today.
DAVID: And we also know through Behe, most advances are precise DNA deletions. Factor these facts into your answer, as I do.dhw: How does Behe’s theory invalidate the theory of cellular intelligence? If your God could delete DNA, so could intelligent cells.
DAVID: The cells would have to foretell their future needs. Not likely.
dhw: No they wouldn’t. The cells would restructure themselves when new conditions required change or offered new opportunities. Cells do not restructure themselves in advance of new requirements. You have confirmed this:
DAVID: I view God as in charge of all speciation. He has to change an earlier species to the next. Therefore, since species adapt to new problems, God must review those alterations to be sure they are on course to the next planned step.
Total confusion between concepts. The sentence above refers to species having the ability to make epigenetic adaptations. Nothing to do with individual cell changes.
DAVID: Pre-programming is supported by Behe's work on devolving DNA and by the comparative anatomy of species as they evolve. Certainly there is common descent.dhw: Does Behe tell you God preplanned every new response to every new problem? And were the first cells really born with potential hands, wings, fins, but subsequently cell communities discarded whichever of these they didn’t need?
"Devolving' per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.
DAVID: I still stick to the idea that the God of the Bible may not be so all powerful, that He doesn't have to correct Himself in pre-planned code.dhw: I like it. A nice piece of “humanizing”. If your God now has to correct himself, you might just as well have him experimenting, or getting new ideas as he goes along. But in the past, you insisted on sticking to the all-powerful God of the Bible.
He is as all-powerful as He can be. I'm cautious about Biblical guesses.
dhw: As far as the disease-causing errors are concerned, we are still left with the claim that he was and is not bothered about them, but he provided backups.DAVID: He cared about us continuing to live or life would have ended in nothing but endless errors. Not the endpoint He desired. What I said was He didn't care if some mistakes caused death, which is/was required , as you have agreed.
And later: Death is required now and during evolution. During evolution God did not stop fatal DNA mistakes (cancer), as shown. We are in charge now using the giant brains God gave us to learn how to do the necessary corrections as far as we can.dhw: Our endpoint is death, and since it is required, are you telling us that your God did or did not deliberately design “errors” (including mistakes of the genetic immune system) that can lead to death? Did he want disease or didn’t he?
I've made the point. He can't control errors. The editing systems show He did the best job of editing He could.
dhw: Has he left us to correct mistakes he couldn’t correct himself, or to correct mistakes he designed to kill us? Did/does he care or didn’t/doesn’t he? In response, you asked if I didn’t consider him “a kindly God”. A nice piece of “humanizing”
I'm sure He didn't want us to suffer. I'm also sure, whether He is kindly or not, is totally unknown, but each person's view of God's personality will give that person an answer.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: I see my purposeful God not wanting errors at all.
dhw: Your purposeful God designs something he doesn’t want, and has to correct whatever he can.
DAVID: I can't seem to get through your thick biases the following facts on which to base a theory; in the biology we study today we find massive editing systems to make sure DNA is copied properly. it makes it obvious God knew the errors would occur since He is relying on protein molecules to exactly follow instructions as they performed their duties and mistakes might and would occur under very high speed processes. It means that every species designed from the start of life had the editing systems, or life would not exist today.
You still haven’t explained how your God can control errors which he can’t control. Now you are emphasizing how well the system works because right from the start God installed means of correcting the errors which he didn’t want and couldn’t control and has even left for us to correct! At this point, I'm tempted to ask whether you are praising your God for his cleverness, or excusing him for his incompetence. Also built into the system is death (See below.)
DAVID: And we also know through Behe, most advances are precise DNA deletions. Factor these facts into your answer, as I do.
dhw: How does Behe’s theory invalidate the theory of cellular intelligence? If your God could delete DNA, so could intelligent cells.
DAVID: The cells would have to foretell their future needs. Not likely.
dhw: No they wouldn’t. The cells would restructure themselves when new conditions required change or offered new opportunities. Cells do not restructure themselves in advance of new requirements. You have confirmed this:
DAVID: I view God as in charge of all speciation. He has to change an earlier species to the next. Therefore, since species adapt to new problems, God must review those alterations to be sure they are on course to the next planned step.
DAVID: Total confusion between concepts. The sentence above refers to species having the ability to make epigenetic adaptations. Nothing to do with individual cell changes.
I don’t see how organisms can adapt without cell changes, but why does he have to review them - let alone "edit" them - if they don’t change cells and therefore don’t pose any threat to his “next planned step”? Maybe you’re thinking of the bad old days a couple of weeks ago, when you inadvertently espoused Darwinism and had these “errors” (random mutations) changing the course of evolution.
dhw: Does Behe tell you God preplanned every new response to every new problem? And were the first cells really born with potential hands, wings, fins, but subsequently cell communities discarded whichever of these they didn’t need?
DAVID: "Devolving' per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.
Your response appears to confirm that the first cells “might have” contained models for hands, wings and fins, and these were discarded at the appropriate time. I suggest that each new organ came into existence as a response to new requirements or opportunities, and as evolution progressed, so the same organ underwent changes to meet the next set of requirements.
DAVID: I still stick to the idea that the God of the Bible may not be so all powerful, that He doesn't have to correct Himself in pre-planned code.
If he can correct himself, why can’t he experiment or have new ideas as he goes along?
dhw: Our endpoint is death, and since it is required, are you telling us that your God did or did not deliberately design “errors” (including mistakes of the genetic immune system) that can lead to death? Did he want disease or didn’t he?
DAVID: I've made the point. He can't control errors. The editing systems show He did the best job of editing He could.
Now you are emphasizing his weakness. It can only be your God who “required” death, and therefore he must have wanted it as part of the life system he invented, so please answer the above question.
dhw: Did/does he care or didn’t/doesn’t he? In response, you asked if I didn’t consider him “a kindly God”. A nice piece of “humanizing”
DAVID: I'm sure He didn't want us to suffer. I'm also sure, whether He is kindly or not, is totally unknown, but each person's view of God's personality will give that person an answer.
Nobody can be sure of anything, but since you are sure of his kindliness and agree that your God probably has attributes similar to ours, perhaps you should finally drop your objections to my logical alternative theistic theories of evolution on the grounds that they “humanize” your God.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, August 24, 2020, 17:58 (1550 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I can't seem to get through your thick biases the following facts on which to base a theory; in the biology we study today we find massive editing systems to make sure DNA is copied properly. it makes it obvious God knew the errors would occur since He is relying on protein molecules to exactly follow instructions as they performed their duties and mistakes might and would occur under very high speed processes. It means that every species designed from the start of life had the editing systems, or life would not exist today.
dhw: You still haven’t explained how your God can control errors which he can’t control. Now you are emphasizing how well the system works because right from the start God installed means of correcting the errors which he didn’t want and couldn’t control and has even left for us to correct! At this point, I'm tempted to ask whether you are praising your God for his cleverness, or excusing him for his incompetence.
Fact: The molecules are free to follow directions. No incompetence involved. Freedom to act is the issue. Mistakes are due to individual molecular failures. Talbott was presented to show his amazement and awe as to how the cells managed to produce despite the chaos of the interior of each cell. Unfortunately you still misunderstand with preconceived bias. You want puppetized molecules. Imagine how the strings would tangle!!
DAVID: I view God as in charge of all speciation. He has to change an earlier species to the next. Therefore, since species adapt to new problems, God must review those alterations to be sure they are on course to the next planned step.DAVID: Total confusion between concepts. The sentence above refers to species having the ability to make epigenetic adaptations. Nothing to do with individual cell changes.
dhw: I don’t see how organisms can adapt without cell changes, but why does he have to review them - let alone "edit" them - if they don’t change cells and therefore don’t pose any threat to his “next planned step”? Maybe you’re thinking of the bad old days a couple of weeks ago, when you inadvertently espoused Darwinism and had these “errors” (random mutations) changing the course of evolution.
Only your biased implication. I have always had God in charge of speciation and editing any DNA veering off course.
dhw: Does Behe tell you God preplanned every new response to every new problem? And were the first cells really born with potential hands, wings, fins, but subsequently cell communities discarded whichever of these they didn’t need?DAVID: "Devolving' per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.
dhw: Your response appears to confirm that the first cells “might have” contained models for hands, wings and fins, and these were discarded at the appropriate time. I suggest that each new organ came into existence as a response to new requirements or opportunities, and as evolution progressed, so the same organ underwent changes to meet the next set of requirements.
Your non-answer avoids the point from Behe. Advances come from removing code! Your answer implies added code or rearranged code.
DAVID: I still stick to the idea that the God of the Bible may not be so all powerful, that He doesn't have to correct Himself in pre-planned code.If he can correct himself, why can’t he experiment or have new ideas as he goes along?
dhw: Our endpoint is death, and since it is required, are you telling us that your God did or did not deliberately design “errors” (including mistakes of the genetic immune system) that can lead to death? Did he want disease or didn’t he?
DAVID: I've made the point. He can't control errors. The editing systems show He did the best job of editing He could.
dhw: Now you are emphasizing his weakness. It can only be your God who “required” death, and therefore he must have wanted it as part of the life system he invented, so please answer the above question.
God obviously didn't want us to have diseases, therefore all the editing mechanisms.
dhw: Did/does he care or didn’t/doesn’t he? In response, you asked if I didn’t consider him “a kindly God”. A nice piece of “humanizing”DAVID: I'm sure He didn't want us to suffer. I'm also sure, whether He is kindly or not, is totally unknown, but each person's view of God's personality will give that person an answer.
dhw: Nobody can be sure of anything, but since you are sure of his kindliness and agree that your God probably has attributes similar to ours, perhaps you should finally drop your objections to my logical alternative theistic theories of evolution on the grounds that they “humanize” your God.
I can make 'possible' human considerations by God, but not consider Him in any way fully humans you have Him. You have Him stumbling on the idea of creating humans!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: You still haven’t explained how your God can control errors which he can’t control. Now you are emphasizing how well the system works because right from the start God installed means of correcting the errors which he didn’t want and couldn’t control and has even left for us to correct! At this point, I'm tempted to ask whether you are praising your God for his cleverness, or excusing him for his incompetence.
DAVID: Fact: The molecules are free to follow directions. No incompetence involved.
I thought they were free NOT to follow directions, which is why there are “mistakes” which your God can’t control. You praise him for providing mechanisms to ensure proper copying, but these don’t always work either, and he’s now left us to correct what he couldn’t or didn’t correct. Sounds pretty incompetent to me.
DAVID: Talbott was presented to show his amazement and awe as to how the cells managed to produce despite the chaos of the interior of each cell. Unfortunately you still misunderstand with preconceived bias. You want puppetized molecules. Imagine how the strings would tangle!!
I don’t “want” anything, and I don’t need Talbott to tell me how amazing and awesome the mechanisms of life are. If I believed in a God, he would have designed what he WANTED to design, and freedom to act (the opposite of “puppetized”) is the very basis of my alternative to your theory of evolution. See the end of this post.
DAVID: I view God as in charge of all speciation. He has to change an earlier species to the next. Therefore, since species adapt to new problems, God must review those alterations to be sure they are on course to the next planned step.
The sentence above refers to species having the ability to make epigenetic adaptations. Nothing to do with individual cell changes.
dhw: I don’t see how organisms can adapt without cell changes, but why does he have to review them - let alone "edit" them - if they don’t change cells and therefore don’t pose any threat to his “next planned step”? Maybe you’re thinking of the bad old days a couple of weeks ago, when you inadvertently espoused Darwinism and had these “errors” (random mutations) changing the course of evolution.
DAVID: Only your biased implication. I have always had God in charge of speciation and editing any DNA veering off course.
What "bias"? You had your God “allowing” (not designing) beneficial mutations that changed the course of evolution and destroying the rest. That is pure Darwinist natural selection. When I pointed it out, you changed your mind and said he only allowed “slight variations” which would not affect his plans. If they did not affect his plans, what was there to edit?
DAVID: "Devolving' per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.
dhw: Your response appears to confirm that the first cells “might have” contained models for hands, wings and fins, and these were discarded at the appropriate time. I suggest that each new organ came into existence as a response to new requirements or opportunities, and as evolution progressed, so the same organ underwent changes to meet the next set of requirements.
DAVID: Your non-answer avoids the point from Behe. Advances come from removing code! Your answer implies added code or rearranged code.
I’m not avoiding it. If Behe thinks the first cells contained models for hands, wings and fins, and the irrelevant models were discarded (I’m relying on your interpretation of Behe’s thoughts), then I find it extremely unlikely and am proposing an alternative: yes, indeed, that the “code” is rearranged, as an organ changes its structure in order to adapt to or exploit new conditions. I don’t think my version is unknown to mainstream science.
dhw: Our endpoint is death, and since it is required, are you telling us that your God did or did not deliberately design “errors” (including mistakes of the genetic immune system) that can lead to death? Did he want disease or didn’t he?
DAVID: God obviously didn't want us to have diseases, therefore all the editing mechanisms.
Why “obviously”? What a mess you’ve got your God into! He wanted death (which was “required”), didn’t want diseases that cause death, provided controls to control the molecular errors he couldn’t control (some controls didn’t work), and left us to correct what he didn’t/couldn’t correct. Here is an alternative to your mass of contradictions, and the exact opposite of “puppetized molecules”, which until now have been at the heart of your own theory that has your God in total control of absolutely everything:
He created a mechanism which allows all life forms to work out their own designs, strategies, lifestyles, wonders etc. If molecules create changes (let’s not call them “errors”), it is because he wanted them to create changes. And these would include beneficial changes that advance evolution, deleterious changes that cause disease and death (see below), and beneficial changes as counters to those that cause disease and death, all in an on-going, ever changing process that has produced the vast variety of life on Earth. Why can’t you “live with” this?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 25, 2020, 19:25 (1549 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Only your biased implication. I have always had God in charge of speciation and editing any DNA veering off course.
dhw: What "bias"? You had your God “allowing” (not designing) beneficial mutations that changed the course of evolution and destroying the rest. That is pure Darwinist natural selection. When I pointed it out, you changed your mind and said he only allowed “slight variations” which would not affect his plans. If they did not affect his plans, what was there to edit?
I've ended my thought process about mistakes, and you keep going back to what I said before. Concentrate on my sentences NOW .
DAVID: "Devolving' per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.dhw: Your response appears to confirm that the first cells “might have” contained models for hands, wings and fins, and these were discarded at the appropriate time. I suggest that each new organ came into existence as a response to new requirements or opportunities, and as evolution progressed, so the same organ underwent changes to meet the next set of requirements.
DAVID: Your non-answer avoids the point from Behe. Advances come from removing code! Your answer implies added code or rearranged code.
dhw: I’m not avoiding it. If Behe thinks the first cells contained models for hands, wings and fins, and the irrelevant models were discarded (I’m relying on your interpretation of Behe’s thoughts), then I find it extremely unlikely and am proposing an alternative: yes, indeed, that the “code” is rearranged, as an organ changes its structure in order to adapt to or exploit new conditions. I don’t think my version is unknown to mainstream science.
Rearranging is not deletion! Organisms make epigenetic changes which fit your comment, but those are added methyl groups not deletion.
dhw: Our endpoint is death, and since it is required, are you telling us that your God did or did not deliberately design “errors” (including mistakes of the genetic immune system) that can lead to death? Did he want disease or didn’t he?DAVID: God obviously didn't want us to have diseases, therefore all the editing mechanisms.
dhw: Why “obviously”? What a mess you’ve got your God into! He wanted death (which was “required”), didn’t want diseases that cause death, provided controls to control the molecular errors he couldn’t control (some controls didn’t work), and left us to correct what he didn’t/couldn’t correct. Here is an alternative to your mass of contradictions, and the exact opposite of “puppetized molecules”, which until now have been at the heart of your own theory that has your God in total control of absolutely everything:
He created a mechanism which allows all life forms to work out their own designs, strategies, lifestyles, wonders etc. If molecules create changes (let’s not call them “errors”), it is because he wanted them to create changes. And these would include beneficial changes that advance evolution, deleterious changes that cause disease and death (see below), and beneficial changes as counters to those that cause disease and death, all in an on-going, ever changing process that has produced the vast variety of life on Earth. Why can’t you “live with” this?
No mass of contradictions. Quite clear to me if you carefully read my explanations in various threads. As usual you have reintroduced you God who concedes control over evolution to the organisms themselves, as if they could understand design for future purpose. My God performed His actions to produce us, choosing methods He preferred. Under your system it is highly doubtful we would have appeared, since our brain power is not necessary for life surviving as our ancestor apes clearly show.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: Only your biased implication. I have always had God in charge of speciation and editing any DNA veering off course.
dhw: What "bias"? You had your God “allowing” (not designing) beneficial mutations that changed the course of evolution and destroying the rest. That is pure Darwinist natural selection. When I pointed it out, you changed your mind and said he only allowed “slight variations” which would not affect his plans. If they did not affect his plans, what was there to edit?
DAVID: I've ended my thought process about mistakes, and you keep going back to what I said before. Concentrate on my sentences NOW.
You did not always have God in charge of speciation, because you had him “allowing” (not designing) random errors that changed the course of evolution, and removing the rest, as per Darwin’s natural selection. Selection is not creation, and contradicts your belief in design, so you changed your tune. This was not a “biased implication”.
DAVID: "Devolving' per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.[…]
dhw: […] If Behe thinks the first cells contained models for hands, wings and fins, and the irrelevant models were discarded (I’m relying on your interpretation of Behe’s thoughts), then I find it extremely unlikely and am proposing an alternative: yes, indeed, that the “code” is rearranged, as an organ changes its structure in order to adapt to or exploit new conditions. I don’t think my version is unknown to mainstream science.
DAVID: Rearranging is not deletion! Organisms make epigenetic changes which fit your comment, but those are added methyl groups not deletion.
I didn’t say rearranging was deletion! Please stick to the examples: do you believe that the first cells contained models for hands, wings and fins, and when one model took over, the others were deleted?
DAVID: God obviously didn't want us to have diseases, therefore all the editing mechanisms.
dhw: Why “obviously”? What a mess you’ve got your God into! He wanted death (which was “required”), didn’t want diseases that cause death, provided controls to control the molecular errors he couldn’t control (some controls didn’t work), and left us to correct what he didn’t/couldn’t correct. Here is an alternative to your mass of contradictions, and the exact opposite of “puppetized molecules”, which until now have been at the heart of your own theory that has your God in total control of absolutely everything:
He created a mechanism which allows all life forms to work out their own designs, strategies, lifestyles, wonders etc. If molecules create changes (let’s not call them “errors”), it is because he wanted them to create changes. And these would include beneficial changes that advance evolution, deleterious changes that cause disease and death (see below), and beneficial changes as counters to those that cause disease and death, all in an on-going, ever changing process that has produced the vast variety of life on Earth. Why can’t you “live with” this?
DAVID: No mass of contradictions. Quite clear to me if you carefully read my explanations in various threads. As usual you have reintroduced you God who concedes control over evolution to the organisms themselves, as if they could understand design for future purpose.
I’ve listed the contradictions, and you have simply told me to forget about them. You keep going on about design for future purposes, when I have explained over and over again that my theory does NOT involve foreseeing the future and is entirely based on organisms reacting to current conditions.
DAVID: My God performed His actions to produce us, choosing methods He preferred. Under your system it is highly doubtful we would have appeared, since our brain power is not necessary for life surviving as our ancestor apes clearly show.
See “Back to David’s theory of evolution” concerning your God’s direct design of all the non-human branches of the giant bush as being necessary for him to directly design H. sapiens. No multicellular organism was necessary for life to survive, since bacteria have done very nicely, thank you. And the system above is only one of several explanations I have offered for the history of life, including one that does make humans into your God’s one and only goal. Whether the above system would have produced humans is irrelevant. You can argue that it was lucky for us that it did, but if it hadn’t, so what?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 26, 2020, 19:10 (1548 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I've ended my thought process about mistakes, and you keep going back to what I said before. Concentrate on my sentences NOW.
dhw: You did not always have God in charge of speciation, because you had him “allowing” (not designing) random errors that changed the course of evolution, and removing the rest, as per Darwin’s natural selection. Selection is not creation, and contradicts your belief in design, so you changed your tune. This was not a “biased implication”.
The bold is a distinct error in your memory. I've have always said a minor variation which did not alter the course of God's planned evolution was allowed!!! I fully believe God speciates by coding the future DNA's in each stage. And you know full well, I do not believe in natural selection.
DAVID: Rearranging is not deletion! Organisms make epigenetic changes which fit your comment, but those are added methyl groups not deletion.
dhw: I didn’t say rearranging was deletion! Please stick to the examples: do you believe that the first cells contained models for hands, wings and fins, and when one model took over, the others were deleted?
I an quoting Behe's published work. Evolution advances through deletion of code in DNA!
DAVID: God obviously didn't want us to have diseases, therefore all the editing mechanisms.dhw: Why “obviously”? What a mess you’ve got your God into! He wanted death (which was “required”), didn’t want diseases that cause death, provided controls to control the molecular errors he couldn’t control (some controls didn’t work), and left us to correct what he didn’t/couldn’t correct. Here is an alternative to your mass of contradictions, and the exact opposite of “puppetized molecules”, which until now have been at the heart of your own theory that has your God in total control of absolutely everything:
He created a mechanism which allows all life forms to work out their own designs, strategies, lifestyles, wonders etc. If molecules create changes (let’s not call them “errors”), it is because he wanted them to create changes. And these would include beneficial changes that advance evolution, deleterious changes that cause disease and death (see below), and beneficial changes as counters to those that cause disease and death, all in an on-going, ever changing process that has produced the vast variety of life on Earth. Why can’t you “live with” this?DAVID: No mass of contradictions. Quite clear to me if you carefully read my explanations in various threads. As usual you have reintroduced you God who concedes control over evolution to the organisms themselves, as if they could understand design for future purpose.
dhw: I’ve listed the contradictions, and you have simply told me to forget about them. You keep going on about design for future purposes, when I have explained over and over again that my theory does NOT involve foreseeing the future and is entirely based on organisms reacting to current conditions.
I know your belief which is completely opposite to mine. God speciates and designs for future problems.
DAVID: My God performed His actions to produce us, choosing methods He preferred. Under your system it is highly doubtful we would have appeared, since our brain power is not necessary for life surviving as our ancestor apes clearly show.dhw: See “Back to David’s theory of evolution” concerning your God’s direct design of all the non-human branches of the giant bush as being necessary for him to directly design H. sapiens. No multicellular organism was necessary for life to survive, since bacteria have done very nicely, thank you. And the system above is only one of several explanations I have offered for the history of life, including one that does make humans into your God’s one and only goal. Whether the above system would have produced humans is irrelevant. You can argue that it was lucky for us that it did, but if it hadn’t, so what?
We wouldn't be here to do battle on this site. Your bold leads to conclusions I have always expressed but you don't consider. If it all was a natural process, why did it go beyond bacteria? You and I can point to NO reason for that advance if we only consider the organismal response to situational pressures. Bacteria have survived all the pressures unchanged. There has to be an agency to force evolutionary advances. That conclusion cannot be avoided based on the argument you have just presented using bacteria.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 26, 2020, 20:51 (1548 days ago) @ David Turell
An example of required protein beneficial folding:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-protein-unprecedented-bacteria-uptake-thiosulfate.html
***
"A new study led by researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Nara, Japan, published in Science Advances, reports the crystal structure of YeeE, a membrane protein that allows bacteria to uptake thiosulfate from the environment in order to synthesize L-cysteine. The structure reveals that YeeE has a characteristic hourglass shape that results in a sophisticated mechanism for the uptake, providing fundamental information that could greatly lower cysteine production costs in industry.
***
"...sulfur-based molecules like L-cysteine are essential for many of our proteins.
***
"Bacteria can take up both sulfate and thiosulfate ions from the environment in order to synthesize L-cysteine. The efficiency of the synthesis from thiosulfate is higher because of fewer chemical reaction steps. To examine which proteins are crucial for thiosulfate uptake, the researchers conducted a series of genetic studies, finding YeeE.
***
"'Both the inner and outer surfaces of YeeE are indented toward the center. We think this shape is crucial for initiating the uptake and conducts thiosulfate," explains Dr. Yoshiki Tanaka, the first author of the study.
"Molecular dynamics simulations implied that the uptake occurs by passing the thiosulfate ion through three key sites in the YeeE structure. In the model, the first site attracts a thiosulfate ion to the positively charged surface. Then using S-H-S type hydrogen bonds, YeeE passes the ion to the other two sites and on to the cytoplasm without itself undergoing any major conformational changes.
"This mechanism for uptake is quite unusual among membrane transporters according to Tanaka.
"'There is a lot less movement compared with transporters that have inward- and outward-facing structures or use rocking bundle motions. YeeE is not structurally designed to use these other mechanisms," he says."
Comment: the exact requirement for this exact shape makes my point. If the molecule fails to make this shape, its function is gone.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 26, 2020, 21:39 (1548 days ago) @ David Turell
Another molecular error leading to cancer:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-uncontrolled-molecule-rare-liver-cancer.html
"...certain molecules have been carrying information around our cells to help regulate bodily functions as needed. One such molecule, called cyclic AMP or "cAMP," presumably travels freely inside cells managing these various processes. Uncannily it seems to show up at the right place and right time in response to environmental changes. How this small molecule does this is a mystery to scientists. So researchers at UC San Diego put their heads together to find out more.
***
"These fluorescent probes helped the team look inside cells in a whole new way. What they found is, like a campfire must be controlled to avoid a serious blaze, uncontrolled cAMP can lead to a rare type of liver cancer called fibrolamellar carcinoma, or FLC. Their findings are published August 25, 2020 in Cell.
"The scientists explained that cAMP and calcium are two of the most important second messenger signaling molecules in human cells. Their sites of action are typically finely orchestrated by binding proteins, kinases and scaffold proteins that create "communities" of signaling molecules.
***
"Jin Zhang explained that cells are typically organized by membrane-enclosed organelles. These are like "rooms" within a factory where certain functions occur; for example the mitochondria, the "powerhouse" of the cell. So it surprised the scientists to discover that a major protein that binds to cAMP can form membraneless (no "walls") organelles in cells through a process similar to how oil droplets form in water.
"'We also found that cAMP is dynamically sequestered into these membraneless organelles. And when these structures are destroyed, cAMP floods the cell, leading to uncontrolled cell growth—an event that can lead to tumor formation," she explained. "Our findings have provided a long-sought-after answer to the cAMP mystery."
***
"'In this study, we showed that this cancer-causing fusion protein disrupts cAMP-containing membraneless organelles, allowing cAMP to flood the cell. Normal liver cells that have lost their capability to form these cAMP-containing membraneless organelles show uncontrolled cell growth, a hallmark of cancer. This study uncovers the mechanism underlying FLC and shows that uncontrolled cAMP can lead to cancer," she said.
***
"'We were surprised to find that these membraneless organelles, despite occupying less than 1 percent of the total volume in a cell, can soak up 99 percent of the cell's cAMP," said Jin Zhang. "We were also surprised to see that these cAMP-containing membraneless organelles are completely disrupted by the FLC cancer-causing fusion protein, which led to our unexpected discovery of a mechanism for its tumor-causing effect.'"
Comment: Here again we see that either a molecular error or a cancer-caused error can lead to uncontrolled cancer growth and spread. The controls are present at first, telling us God foresaw errors and tried to correct for them, both by the controls of cAMP and examples I've presented of editing.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: You did not always have God in charge of speciation, because you had him “allowing” (not designing) random errors that changed the course of evolution, and removing the rest, as per Darwin’s natural selection.
DAVID: The bold is a distinct error in your memory. I've have always said a minor variation which did not alter the course of God's planned evolution was allowed!!!
Herewith some quotes:
DAVID: During evolution a DNA mistake can change the course of evolution.
DAVID: A mutational error favoured by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.
dhw: Please explain how God “allowing” random mutations to change the course of evolution is consistent with God directly designing all life forms, including us.
DAVID: I am amazed at your statement. God is the final editor of what genomes pass on to each new level of evolution. What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God’s plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!
I don’t think you should blame me for pointing out your contradictions, or accusE me of making them up.
dhw:…do you believe that the first cells contained models for hands, wings and fins, and when one model took over, the others were deleted?
DAVID: I am quoting Behe's published work. Evolution advances through deletion of code in DNA!
This discussion originated with an article describing evolution of fins to hands, and you wrote: “Devolving per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.” If you think the example supports your theory and his, I have every right to ask my question, so please answer it.
As an alternative to your theory, I proposed that your God produced exactly what he wanted: a mechanism allowing cells to work out their own designs etc., including all the beneficial and deleterious ones that have produced the vast variety of life’s history and the death he “required”.
DAVID: As usual you have reintroduced you God who concedes control over evolution to the organisms themselves, as if they could understand design for future purpose.
dhw: You keep going on about design for future purposes, when I have explained over and over again that my theory does NOT involve foreseeing the future and is entirely based on organisms reacting to current conditions.
DAVID: I know your belief which is completely opposite to mine. God speciates and designs for future problems.
Repeating your belief is no excuse for attacking my proposal because organisms must foretell the future when I keep repeating that my theory ONLY requires responses to their present.
DAVID: Under your system it is highly doubtful we would have appeared, since our brain power is not necessary for life surviving as our ancestor apes clearly show.
dhw: No multicellular organism was necessary for life to survive, since bacteria have done very nicely, thank you. […] Whether the above system would have produced humans is irrelevant. You can argue that it was lucky for us that it did, but if it hadn’t, so what?
DAVID: We wouldn't be here to do battle on this site.
Understood.
DAVID: Your bold leads to conclusions I have always expressed but you don't consider. If it all was a natural process, why did it go beyond bacteria? You and I can point to NO reason for that advance if we only consider the organismal response to situational pressures. Bacteria have survived all the pressures unchanged. There has to be an agency to force evolutionary advances. That conclusion cannot be avoided based on the argument you have just presented using bacteria.
We have discussed this over and over again. Yes, we CAN think of a reason for the advances of evolution, glanced at in the article on the theoretical fusion of archaea and bacteria. Yet again, my proposal: advances took place after intelligent cells had begun to cooperate in finding methods of dealing with ever changing conditions and increasingly varied econiches. This particular “fusion” may have enabled the combined organism to survive without oxygen, while their buddies carried on quite happily WITH oxygen. So we already have diversity, leading over billions of years to the huge variety of ways in which organisms cope with changing conditions, finding food, and avoiding becoming food. There is nothing mysterious about the concept of cooperation between living organisms or about progressive advances as changing conditions require or allow an ever great variety of methods. The mystery lies in the origin of life itself and of the mechanisms that have enabled cells to reproduce, vary, and act with the intelligence so evident in all their actions. I agree with you that in terms of intelligence, H. sapiens is the culmination (at least so far) of the whole process, but you asked why evolution advanced beyond bacteria. None of it was “necessary” in the great scheme of things – the original life forms survived, but when some of these were exposed to different conditions, they began the whole process. In time, I would say the agency that drove (rather than “forced”) advances became a mixture of pressures and opportunities for survival in response to changing conditions.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, August 27, 2020, 15:51 (1547 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: This discussion originated with an article describing evolution of fins to hands, and you wrote: “Devolving per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.” If you think the example supports your theory and his, I have every right to ask my question, so please answer it.
I have many times. Per Behe, all advances involve removing of DNA code. If that is the case, original DNA held all the information needed, and what was removed was code that held back advances.
dhw: As an alternative to your theory, I proposed that your God produced exactly what he wanted: a mechanism allowing cells to work out their own designs etc., including all the beneficial and deleterious ones that have produced the vast variety of life’s history and the death he “required”.DAVID: As usual you have reintroduced your God who concedes control over evolution to the organisms themselves, as if they could understand design for future purpose.
dhw: You keep going on about design for future purposes, when I have explained over and over again that my theory does NOT involve foreseeing the future and is entirely based on organisms reacting to current conditions.
DAVID: I know your belief which is completely opposite to mine. God speciates and designs for future problems.
dhw: Repeating your belief is no excuse for attacking my proposal because organisms must foretell the future when I keep repeating that my theory ONLY requires responses to their present.
We go back to the huge gaps in evolution that so troubled Gould, and you studiously ignore. The new organisms are much different from the past and miraculously can handle the future they find themselves entering into with all its different challenges. Design for the future required.
DAVID: Under your system it is highly doubtful we would have appeared, since our brain power is not necessary for life surviving as our ancestor apes clearly show.dhw: No multicellular organism was necessary for life to survive, since bacteria have done very nicely, thank you. […] Whether the above system would have produced humans is irrelevant. You can argue that it was lucky for us that it did, but if it hadn’t, so what?
DAVID: We wouldn't be here to do battle on this site.
dhw: Understood.
DAVID: Your bold leads to conclusions I have always expressed but you don't consider. If it all was a natural process, why did it go beyond bacteria? You and I can point to NO reason for that advance if we only consider the organismal response to situational pressures. Bacteria have survived all the pressures unchanged. There has to be an agency to force evolutionary advances. That conclusion cannot be avoided based on the argument you have just presented using bacteria.
dhw: We have discussed this over and over again. Yes, we CAN think of a reason for the advances of evolution, glanced at in the article on the theoretical fusion of archaea and bacteria. Yet again, my proposal: advances took place after intelligent cells had begun to cooperate in finding methods of dealing with ever changing conditions and increasingly varied econiches. This particular “fusion” may have enabled the combined organism to survive without oxygen, while their buddies carried on quite happily WITH oxygen. So we already have diversity, leading over billions of years to the huge variety of ways in which organisms cope with changing conditions, finding food, and avoiding becoming food. There is nothing mysterious about the concept of cooperation between living organisms or about progressive advances as changing conditions require or allow an ever great variety of methods. The mystery lies in the origin of life itself and of the mechanisms that have enabled cells to reproduce, vary, and act with the intelligence so evident in all their actions. I agree with you that in terms of intelligence, H. sapiens is the culmination (at least so far) of the whole process, but you asked why evolution advanced beyond bacteria. None of it was “necessary” in the great scheme of things – the original life forms survived, but when some of these were exposed to different conditions, they began the whole process. In time, I would say the agency that drove (rather than “forced”) advances became a mixture of pressures and opportunities for survival in response to changing conditions.
You've not skipped over the starting point of how life began and what gave it the ability to evolve by adaptations. What was the cause? Nothing is not an answer. You'll keep it mysterious, a non-answer. I'll accept God, the designer of all you have just described.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, August 27, 2020, 18:55 (1547 days ago) @ David Turell
Editing out lethal links in cellular DNA:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-severing-lethal-links-dna.html
"Chemical lesions in the genetic material DNA can have catastrophic consequences for cells, and even for the organism concerned. This explains why the efficient identification and rapid repair of DNA damage is vital for survival. DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs), which are formed when proteins are adventitiously attached to DNA, are particularly harmful. DPCs are removed by the action of a dedicated enzyme—the protease SPRTN—which cleaves the bond between the protein and the DNA. Up to now, how SPRTN recognizes such crosslinks, which can differ significantly in structure, has remained unclear. Now a team led by Professor Julian Stingele ...has shown that the enzyme utilizes a modular recognition mechanism to detect such sites, such that it is activated only under highly specific conditions.
"DPCs can be created by interactions with highly reactive products of normal metabolism or with synthetic chemotherapeutic agents. These lesions are extremely toxic because they block the replication of DNA—and therefore inhibit cell division. Timely and effective repair of these crosslinks by SPRTN is crucial for cell viability and the suppression of tumorigenesis. In humans, mutations that reduce the activity of the enzyme are associated with a high incidence of liver cancer in early life and markedly accelerate the aging process. "SPRTN has a difficult job to do because, depending on the protein and the DNA subunit involved, the structure of the crosslink can vary widely. So the enzyme has to be able to identify many different structures as aberrant," explains Hannah Reinking, first author of the study. "We therefore asked ourselves what sorts of properties a DPC should have in order to be recognized and cleaved."
"To answer this question, Reinking and colleagues constructed model substrates consisting of proteins attached to defined positions within DNA strands, and examined whether the SPRTN protease could repair them in the test-tube. This approach revealed that SPRTN interacts with structures that are frequently found in the vicinity of DPCs. With the aid of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, they went on to show that SPRTN contains two recognition domains. One binds to double-stranded, and the other to single-stranded DNA. "So the protein uses a modular system for substrate recognition. Only when both domains are engaged is the enzyme active—and DNA in which double-stranded and single-stranded regions occur in close proximity is often found in the vicinity of crosslinks," says Stingele."
Comment: A highly complex editing system which offers rapid correction of these lethal links. This had to be designed at the start of DNA reproductive life. God knew of the problems in advance of fully designing life. Not by chance.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: This discussion originated with an article describing evolution of fins to hands, and you wrote: “Devolving per Behe means that all the future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.” If you think the example supports your theory and his, I have every right to ask my question, so please answer it.
DAVID: I have many times. Per Behe, all advances involve removing of DNA code. If that is the case, original DNA held all the information needed, and what was removed was code that held back advances.
But you said it meant that “all future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome”, so I asked if you thought the first cells contained models for hands, wings and fins, and when one model took over, the others were deleted. Perhaps you could explain what you meant by “models”?
dhw: As an alternative to your theory, I proposed that your God produced exactly what he wanted: a mechanism allowing cells to work out their own designs etc., including all the beneficial and deleterious ones that have produced the vast variety of life’s history and the death he “required”.
DAVID: As usual you have reintroduced your God who concedes control over evolution to the organisms themselves, as if they could understand design for future purpose.
dhw: You keep going on about design for future purposes, when I have explained over and over again that my theory does NOT involve foreseeing the future and is entirely based on organisms reacting to current conditions.
DAVID: I know your belief which is completely opposite to mine. God speciates and designs for future problems.
dhw: Repeating your belief is no excuse for attacking my proposal because organisms must foretell the future when I keep repeating that my theory ONLY requires responses to their present.
DAVID: We go back to the huge gaps in evolution that so troubled Gould, and you studiously ignore. The new organisms are much different from the past and miraculously can handle the future they find themselves entering into with all its different challenges. Design for the future required.
I don’t ignore them. I have repeatedly opposed Darwin’s theory that nature doesn’t make jumps, but that is not the issue here. You sometimes dismiss proposals that run counter to mainstream science. Yes, new organisms are different from earlier organisms, but I wonder how many scientists share your belief that innovations appear BEFORE the new challenges, as opposed to being responses to them. (See below, under “magic embryology”.)
dhw: […] There is nothing mysterious about the concept of cooperation between living organisms or about progressive advances as changing conditions require or allow an ever great variety of methods. The mystery lies in the origin of life itself and of the mechanisms that have enabled cells to reproduce, vary, and act with the intelligence so evident in all their actions. […] you asked why evolution advanced beyond bacteria. None of it was “necessary” in the great scheme of things – the original life forms survived, but when some of these were exposed to different conditions, they began the whole process. In time, I would say the agency that drove (rather than “forced”) advances became a mixture of pressures and opportunities for survival in response to changing conditions.
DAVID: You've not skipped over the starting point of how life began and what gave it the ability to evolve by adaptations. What was the cause? Nothing is not an answer. You'll keep it mysterious, a non-answer. I'll accept God, the designer of all you have just described.
Presumably you mean I HAVE skipped the starting point. Look at the bold. But you asked why evolution advanced beyond bacteria, and I gave you an answer (too long to reproduce in full). Now you switch to wanting an answer to the mystery of the origin of life! For the umpteenth time, three possible answers: 1) God, 2) chance, 3) some form of panpsychism. And I find all three equally impossible to believe.
Under “Magic embryology”
DAVID: The microbiome is always a part of embryological development:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-environment-microbiome-jointly-body.html
QUOTES: “Most living beings have developed strategies to recognize changes in their environment and to adapt their individual growth and thus also the resulting body shape to the prevailing conditions.”
“In this way, we were able to demonstrate which internal processes ultimately lead to the adaptation of a living being's developmental program in response to its environment."
DAVID: All of us are inhabited by friendly microbiomes that are integrated with the genetic systems in a cooperative effort. This is as finely tuned as any ecosystem and really is one. As noted before, this is why bacteria are still around, as necessary. Now we can include viruses and fungi. No mistakes here.
On this we can agree. It was Lynn Margulis who drew attention to cooperation as a key element of evolution (whereas earlier evolutionists tended to emphasize competition). She also championed cellular intelligence. My selected quotes take it for granted that organisms develop in response to changing conditions. I wonder how many scientists believe that God changed the pre-whale’s legs into fins BEFORE it entered the water.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, August 28, 2020, 23:17 (1546 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I have many times. Per Behe, all advances involve removing of DNA code. If that is the case, original DNA held all the information needed, and what was removed was code that held back advances.
dhw: But you said it meant that “all future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome”,... Perhaps you could explain what you meant by “models”?
Codes for new parts. Not models.
DAVID: We go back to the huge gaps in evolution that so troubled Gould, and you studiously ignore. The new organisms are much different from the past and miraculously can handle the future they find themselves entering into with all its different challenges. Design for the future required.dhw: I don’t ignore them. I have repeatedly opposed Darwin’s theory that nature doesn’t make jumps, but that is not the issue here. You sometimes dismiss proposals that run counter to mainstream science. Yes, new organisms are different from earlier organisms, but I wonder how many scientists share your belief that innovations appear BEFORE the new challenges, as opposed to being responses to them. (See below, under “magic embryology”.)
We can't mix science and religion in the way you have asked me. Which innovations do you wish to discuss? You know my feelings about brains.
DAVID: You've not skipped over the starting point of how life began and what gave it the ability to evolve by adaptations. What was the cause? Nothing is not an answer. You'll keep it mysterious, a non-answer. I'll accept God, the designer of all you have just described.dhw: Presumably you mean I HAVE skipped the starting point. Look at the bold. But you asked why evolution advanced beyond bacteria, and I gave you an answer (too long to reproduce in full). Now you switch to wanting an answer to the mystery of the origin of life! For the umpteenth time, three possible answers: 1) God, 2) chance, 3) some form of panpsychism. And I find all three equally impossible to believe.
I know. I have had the ability to pick one. Only His mind can really design in anticipation of future requirements.
Under “Magic embryology”
DAVID: The microbiome is always a part of embryological development:
https://phys.org/news/2020-08-environment-microbiome-jointly-body.htmlQUOTES: “Most living beings have developed strategies to recognize changes in their environment and to adapt their individual growth and thus also the resulting body shape to the prevailing conditions.”
“In this way, we were able to demonstrate which internal processes ultimately lead to the adaptation of a living being's developmental program in response to its environment."DAVID: All of us are inhabited by friendly microbiomes that are integrated with the genetic systems in a cooperative effort. This is as finely tuned as any ecosystem and really is one. As noted before, this is why bacteria are still around, as necessary. Now we can include viruses and fungi. No mistakes here.
dhw: On this we can agree. It was Lynn Margulis who drew attention to cooperation as a key element of evolution (whereas earlier evolutionists tended to emphasize competition). She also championed cellular intelligence. My selected quotes take it for granted that organisms develop in response to changing conditions. I wonder how many scientists believe that God changed the pre-whale’s legs into fins BEFORE it entered the water.
Seduction by a simplistic Darwin theory to which they twist and turn in order to make it fit a reality it does not fit destroys logical attempts at scientific thought. This is why Behe is so disruptive.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
This discussion has diverged from "error corrections", but we'll leave it here for the time being.
DAVID: Per Behe, all advances involve removing of DNA code. If that is the case, original DNA held all the information needed, and what was removed was code that held back advances.
dhw: But you said it meant that “all future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome”,... Perhaps you could explain what you meant by “models”?
DAVID: Codes for new parts. Not models.
Yes, I thought models might be a bit bulky for those poor little cells. Anyway, now we have them containing codes for hands, wings and fins, and later cell communities dropped two and kept one. Presumably, then, the first cells also contained codes for legs and arms too, added to the programmes they apparently contained for every single undabbled innovation, lifestyle, natural wonder, bacterial response etc. in the history of life. What a pity they didn’t also contain corrections for “errors” like cancer, but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.
DAVID: The new organisms are much different from the past and miraculously can handle the future they find themselves entering into with all its different challenges. Design for the future required.
dhw: You sometimes dismiss proposals that run counter to mainstream science. Yes, new organisms are different from earlier organisms, but I wonder how many scientists share your belief that innovations appear BEFORE the new challenges, as opposed to being responses to them. (See below, under “magic embryology”.)
DAVID: We can't mix science and religion in the way you have asked me. Which innovations do you wish to discuss? You know my feelings about brains.
Then leave God out.You say new organisms arrived in advance of the challenges they would face in the future. I propose that new organisms appeared in response to new challenges. I wondered how many scientists agree with you. If you want an example, see pre-whale legs below.
dhw: …you asked why evolution advanced beyond bacteria, and I gave you an answer (too long to reproduce in full). Now you switch to wanting an answer to the mystery of the origin of life! For the umpteenth time, three possible answers: 1) God, 2) chance, 3) some form of panpsychism. And I find all three equally impossible to believe.
DAVID: I know. I have had the ability to pick one. Only His mind can really design in anticipation of future requirements.
If you know, why did you moan that I’d skipped the origin of life?
Under “Magic embryology”
DAVID: All of us are inhabited by friendly microbiomes that are integrated with the genetic systems in a cooperative effort. This is as finely tuned as any ecosystem and really is one. As noted before, this is why bacteria are still around, as necessary. Now we can include viruses and fungi. No mistakes here.
dhw: On this we can agree. It was Lynn Margulis who drew attention to cooperation as a key element of evolution (whereas earlier evolutionists tended to emphasize competition). She also championed cellular intelligence. My selected quotes take it for granted that organisms develop in response to changing conditions. I wonder how many scientists believe that God changed the pre-whale’s legs into fins BEFORE it entered the water.
DAVID: Seduction by a simplistic Darwin theory to which they twist and turn in order to make it fit a reality it does not fit destroys logical attempts at scientific thought. This is why Behe is so disruptive.
How can you possibly argue that your God turning legs into fins before pre-whales entered the water is more logical, more scientific and more of a fit with reality than legs adapting to life in the water and in due course turning into fins?
DAVID (under “Immunity”): we use bacterial CRISPR enzyme to edit DNA, a perversion of its use in life, in which it is used to chop up enemy DNA's. But the real consideration is when does this type of immunity appear in relation to the origin of the organism? And it obviously has to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species.
Once again you are confusing yourself by conflating evolution and direct design. For those of us who believe in common descent, each new organism/species will have inherited characteristics and processes, including certain forms of immunity, from its ancestors. Immunity, in my view, has to be an on-going process as the cells react to new threats. The designer of the mechanism (I call it cellular intelligence) which works out solutions to new problems as they arise may be your God.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, August 29, 2020, 18:08 (1545 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: But you said it meant that “all future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome”,... Perhaps you could explain what you meant by “models”?
DAVID: Codes for new parts. Not models.
dhw: Yes, I thought models might be a bit bulky for those poor little cells.... What a pity they didn’t also contain corrections for “errors” like cancer, but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.
The original DNA also contained an amazing editing system you keep ignoring, and then denigrating as really useless.
Under “Magic embryology”
DAVID: All of us are inhabited by friendly microbiomes that are integrated with the genetic systems in a cooperative effort. This is as finely tuned as any ecosystem and really is one. As noted before, this is why bacteria are still around, as necessary. Now we can include viruses and fungi. No mistakes here.dhw: On this we can agree. It was Lynn Margulis who drew attention to cooperation as a key element of evolution (whereas earlier evolutionists tended to emphasize competition). She also championed cellular intelligence. My selected quotes take it for granted that organisms develop in response to changing conditions. I wonder how many scientists believe that God changed the pre-whale’s legs into fins BEFORE it entered the water.
DAVID: Seduction by a simplistic Darwin theory to which they twist and turn in order to make it fit a reality it does not fit destroys logical attempts at scientific thought. This is why Behe is so disruptive.
dhw: How can you possibly argue that your God turning legs into fins before pre-whales entered the water is more logical, more scientific and more of a fit with reality than legs adapting to life in the water and in due course turning into fins?
You constantly forget the gaps between whale species fossils. Where are the itty-bitty modified forms to fit your suggestion?
DAVID (under “Immunity”): we use bacterial CRISPR enzyme to edit DNA, a perversion of its use in life, in which it is used to chop up enemy DNA's. But the real consideration is when does this type of immunity appear in relation to the origin of the organism? And it obviously has to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species.dhw: Once again you are confusing yourself by conflating evolution and direct design. For those of us who believe in common descent, each new organism/species will have inherited characteristics and processes, including certain forms of immunity, from its ancestors. Immunity, in my view, has to be an on-going process as the cells react to new threats. The designer of the mechanism (I call it cellular intelligence) which works out solutions to new problems as they arise may be your God.
I'm not confused by my approach to God designing a process that we interpret as evolution. It is your confusion about my beliefs, as usual
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: But you said it meant that “all future organism models might be present in the original DNA/genome.”... Perhaps you could explain what you meant by “models”?
DAVID: Codes for new parts. Not models.
dhw: Yes, I thought models might be a bit bulky for those poor little cells.... What a pity they didn’t also contain corrections for “errors” like cancer, but I guess you have to draw the line somewhere.
You left out my comment that the original cells must also have contained codes for legs, arms, plus every undabbled innovation, lifestyle etc. in the history of life. Single cells do indeed contain a miraculous amount of information, but codes for the whole of life's history minus the dabbles seems to me to be going a bit too far.
DAVID: The original DNA also contained an amazing editing system you keep ignoring, and then denigrating as really useless.
The subject and starting point of this thread is the errors that are not covered by the amazing editing system. If all you wanted to do was discuss the successes, there was no point in opening a thread about the errors. And the fact that I have focused on the disease-causing errors that initially caused you so much trouble (and incidentally provided you with your career) does not mean that I regard the body’s miraculous network of properly functioning cells as “really useless”. Please stop jumping to silly conclusions.
dhw: How can you possibly argue that your God turning legs into fins before pre-whales entered the water is more logical, more scientific and more of a fit with reality than legs adapting to life in the water and in due course turning into fins?
DAVID: You constantly forget the gaps between whale species fossils. Where are the itty-bitty modified forms to fit your suggestion?
We cannot expect to find a complete inch-by-inch fossil record of every modification in every species that has descended from earlier species. But the fact that we can observe how modern organisms adapt to new conditions, as opposed to changing before new conditions arise, suggests to me that legs adapting to life in the water is a more likely explanation for the evolution of fins than your God stepping in and doing an operation on a group of pre-whales before telling them to go swim.
DAVID (under “Immunity”): we use bacterial CRISPR enzyme to edit DNA, a perversion of its use in life, in which it is used to chop up enemy DNA's. But the real consideration is when does this type of immunity appear in relation to the origin of the organism? And it obviously has to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species.
dhw: Once again you are confusing yourself by conflating evolution and direct design. For those of us who believe in common descent, each new organism/species will have inherited characteristics and processes, including certain forms of immunity, from its ancestors. Immunity, in my view, has to be an on-going process as the cells react to new threats. The designer of the mechanism (I call it cellular intelligence) which works out solutions to new problems as they arise may be your God.
DAVID: I'm not confused by my approach to God designing a process that we interpret as evolution. It is your confusion about my beliefs, as usual.
You said that this form of immunity had to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species. I don’t see why. Do you disagree that new organisms will have inherited certain forms of immunity from their ancestors, and do you disagree that immunity is an on-going process as cells react to new threats?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Sunday, August 30, 2020, 19:34 (1544 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You left out my comment that the original cells must also have contained codes for legs, arms, plus every undabbled innovation, lifestyle etc. in the history of life. Single cells do indeed contain a miraculous amount of information, but codes for the whole of life's history minus the dabbles seems to me to be going a bit too far.
The DNA coding system with four bases, including some substitution carries far more information than the two base 0,1 system we use.
DAVID: The original DNA also contained an amazing editing system you keep ignoring, and then denigrating as really useless.dhw: The subject and starting point of this thread is the errors that are not covered by the amazing editing system. If all you wanted to do was discuss the successes, there was no point in opening a thread about the errors. And the fact that I have focused on the disease-causing errors that initially caused you so much trouble (and incidentally provided you with your career) does not mean that I regard the body’s miraculous network of properly functioning cells as “really useless”. Please stop jumping to silly conclusions.
I was only responding to our comments that had no basis. Recognizing the error problem is settled in my mind thanks to your criticisms that were on the mark.
dhw: How can you possibly argue that your God turning legs into fins before pre-whales entered the water is more logical, more scientific and more of a fit with reality than legs adapting to life in the water and in due course turning into fins?DAVID: You constantly forget the gaps between whale species fossils. Where are the itty-bitty modified forms to fit your suggestion?
dhw: We cannot expect to find a complete inch-by-inch fossil record of every modification in every species that has descended from earlier species. But the fact that we can observe how modern organisms adapt to new conditions, as opposed to changing before new conditions arise, suggests to me that legs adapting to life in the water is a more likely explanation for the evolution of fins than your God stepping in and doing an operation on a group of pre-whales before telling them to go swim.
We still differ about God. I have Him in charge of every advance in evolution
DAVID (under “Immunity”): we use bacterial CRISPR enzyme to edit DNA, a perversion of its use in life, in which it is used to chop up enemy DNA's. But the real consideration is when does this type of immunity appear in relation to the origin of the organism? And it obviously has to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species.dhw: Once again you are confusing yourself by conflating evolution and direct design. For those of us who believe in common descent, each new organism/species will have inherited characteristics and processes, including certain forms of immunity, from its ancestors. Immunity, in my view, has to be an on-going process as the cells react to new threats. The designer of the mechanism (I call it cellular intelligence) which works out solutions to new problems as they arise may be your God.
DAVID: I'm not confused by my approach to God designing a process that we interpret as evolution. It is your confusion about my beliefs, as usual.
dhw: You said that this form of immunity had to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species. I don’t see why. Do you disagree that new organisms will have inherited certain forms of immunity from their ancestors, and do you disagree that immunity is an on-going process as cells react to new threats?
You have carefully avoided the issue of disease protection in the first versions of life. I would suggest bacteria and viruses were present as God started life. He did not make all them peaceful. Bacteria eat bacteria and viruses attack bacteria. In my view for evolution to advance forms had to survive attacks and disease. Since God allowed the problems He had to give favored organisms ways of defending themselves. You are correct: the defense mechanisms are carried through from the first organisms by purposeful design.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
I have shifted this from the Talbott thread, which we can now close.
dhw: If God designed a system which produces errors, he produced errors even though he didn’t want to.
DAVID: What a twisted line of thought. The errors are in His system, but that [doesn’t] mean He caused them. Errors are accidents of function. If another car runs into yours is that your fault?
dhw: Silly analogy. If someone designs a car with "errors" that make it break down, whose fault is it?
DAVID: Still confused. I described an accidental happening, not design, which you avoided answering. No one designs a car with errors, but they are discovered and corrected by recalls. God's editing system shows He knew molecules would make errors by mistake. Those mistakes are not God's fault. The molecules are under precise instructions to follow. And they do the vast majority of time.
Please drop your silly car analogy. Cars are designed. If errors happen accidentally, this means the designer did not know there would be errors, and so yes indeed the car has to be recalled. And the designer should be sacked. If your God gave molecules the freedom to disobey his instructions, perhaps a better analogy would be human free will: God issued his commandments, but it was up to humans to obey them or not. However, this analogy – absolving God from responsibility for any “errors” – means that he deliberately relinquished control over his molecules (i.e. “errors” were part of his plan). Since death was “required”, disease-causing errors were essential, but if some nasty molecules had the freedom to find ways of killing us, other molecules had the freedom to find ways of fighting the nasty molecules. (Hence the ever evolving immune system, and human ingenuity in finding cures.) But even if they succeeded, your God had built in death from old age. Isn’t this a better analogy, and a more respectful one for your God, who in your version has lost control, tries to regain it but sometimes fails?
dhw: …Single cells do indeed contain a miraculous amount of information, but codes for the whole of life's history minus the dabbles seems to me to be going a bit too far.
DAVID: The DNA coding system with four bases, including some substitution carries far more information than the two base 0,1 system we use.
I don’t know how this makes it more feasible that the original DNA could have contained programmes for every single undabbled life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. in life’s history.
DAVID: The original DNA also contained an amazing editing system you keep ignoring, and then denigrating as really useless.
dhw: […] the fact that I have focused on the disease-causing errors that initially caused you so much trouble (and incidentally provided you with your career) does not mean that I regard the body’s miraculous network of properly functioning cells as “really useless”. Please stop jumping to silly conclusions.
DAVID: I was only responding to our comments that had no basis. Recognizing the error problem is settled in my mind thanks to your criticisms that were on the mark.
Thank you for acknowledging that my criticisms were on the mark. No thanks for telling me that I regard the wonders of DNA as “really useless”, or for glossing over the fact that having opened this thread with the problem of explaining “errors”, your solution is to think only of the successes.
dhw: the fact that we can observe how modern organisms adapt to new conditions, as opposed to changing before new conditions arise, suggests to me that legs adapting to life in the water is a more likely explanation for the evolution of fins than your God stepping in and doing an operation on a group of pre-whales before telling them to go swim.
DAVID: We still differ about God. I have Him in charge of every advance in evolution.
So you believe he operated on a group of pre-whales to change their legs into fins before they entered the water. I understand.
dhw: You said that this form of immunity had to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species. I don’t see why. Do you disagree that new organisms will have inherited certain forms of immunity from their ancestors, and do you disagree that immunity is an on-going process as cells react to new threats?
DAVID: You have carefully avoided the issue of disease protection in the first versions of life. I would suggest bacteria and viruses were present as God started life. He did not make all them peaceful. Bacteria eat bacteria and viruses attack bacteria. In my view for evolution to advance forms had to survive attacks and disease. Since God allowed the problems He had to give favored organisms ways of defending themselves. You are correct: the defense mechanisms are carried through from the first organisms by purposeful design.
There is no careful avoidance! I completely accept what you say about the behaviour and role of bacteria and viruses! But I was responding to your claim that a particular form of immunity had to be designed into the first appearance of each new species. Thank you for now agreeing that this is inaccurate, defence mechanisms can be inherited from preceding species, and immunity is an on-going process.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, August 31, 2020, 17:31 (1543 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: If your God gave molecules the freedom to disobey his instructions, perhaps a better analogy would be human free will: God issued his commandments, but it was up to humans to obey them or not. However, this analogy – absolving God from responsibility for any “errors” – means that he deliberately relinquished control over his molecules (i.e. “errors” were part of his plan).
Freedom of molecules to make mistakes is part and parcel of the form of living mechanisms God gave us. We do not know of another system and if such system could work. My guess is He could not design system of constant cell reproduction which keeps our bodies fresh over the years of our lives without some errors by molecules.
dhw: Since death was “required”, disease-causing errors were essential, but if some nasty molecules had the freedom to find ways of killing us, other molecules had the freedom to find ways of fighting the nasty molecules. (Hence the ever evolving immune system, and human ingenuity in finding cures.) But even if they succeeded, your God had built in death from old age. Isn’t this a better analogy, and a more respectful one for your God, who in your version has lost control, tries to regain it but sometimes fails?
Your confusion still shows as it regards my approach. Stop trying to revise what you apparently think is a terrible version of my God.
dhw: You said that this form of immunity had to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species. I don’t see why. Do you disagree that new organisms will have inherited certain forms of immunity from their ancestors, and do you disagree that immunity is an on-going process as cells react to new threats?
DAVID: You have carefully avoided the issue of disease protection in the first versions of life. I would suggest bacteria and viruses were present as God started life. He did not make all them peaceful. Bacteria eat bacteria and viruses attack bacteria. In my view for evolution to advance forms had to survive attacks and disease. Since God allowed the problems He had to give favored organisms ways of defending themselves. You are correct: the defense mechanisms are carried through from the first organisms by purposeful design.
dhw: There is no careful avoidance! I completely accept what you say about the behaviour and role of bacteria and viruses! But I was responding to your claim that a particular form of immunity had to be designed into the first appearance of each new species. Thank you for now agreeing that this is inaccurate, defence mechanisms can be inherited from preceding species, and immunity is an on-going process.
My point still is first life had to be designed with immunity defense mechanisms when the organisms appeared. They didn't appear by chance.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: If your God gave molecules the freedom to disobey his instructions, perhaps a better analogy would be human free will: God issued his commandments, but it was up to humans to obey them or not. However, this analogy – absolving God from responsibility for any “errors” – means that he deliberately relinquished control over his molecules (i.e. “errors” were part of his plan).
DAVID: Freedom of molecules to make mistakes is part and parcel of the form of living mechanisms God gave us. [dhw: That is the theory I am proposing with my “free will” analogy.] We do not know of another system and if such system could work. My guess is He could not design system of constant cell reproduction which keeps our bodies fresh over the years of our lives without some errors by molecules. [dhw: All irrelevant to my proposal that the “freedom of molecules to make mistakes” was part of his plan, as with free will. If it wasn’t, then he produced something he didn’t want to produce!]
dhw: Since death was “required”, disease-causing errors were essential, but if some nasty molecules had the freedom to find ways of killing us, other molecules had the freedom to find ways of fighting the nasty molecules. (Hence the ever evolving immune system, and human ingenuity in finding cures.) But even if they succeeded, your God had built in death from old age. Isn’t this a better analogy, and a more respectful one for your God, who in your version has lost control, tries to regain it but sometimes fails?
DAVID:[…] Stop trying to revise what you apparently think is a terrible version of my God.
It is you who insist that your God could not prevent the disease-causing errors arising from the system he designed, tried to stop or correct them, but sometimes failed. What have I “revised”? My analogy proposes that he designed precisely what he wanted to design. What is your objection?
dhw: You said that this form of immunity had to be designed simultaneously into the first appearance of each new species. I don’t see why. Do you disagree that new organisms will have inherited certain forms of immunity from their ancestors, and do you disagree that immunity is an on-going process as cells react to new threats?
DAVID: You have carefully avoided the issue of disease protection in the first versions of life. I would suggest bacteria and viruses were present as God started life […]] You are correct: the defense mechanisms are carried through from the first organisms by purposeful design.
dhw: There is no careful avoidance! I completely accept what you say about the behaviour and role of bacteria and viruses! But I was responding to your claim that a particular form of immunity had to be designed into the first appearance of each new species.[/b]
DAVID: My point still is first life had to be designed with immunity defense mechanisms when the organisms appeared. They didn't appear by chance.
Your point was what I have bolded above. Hence my answer. Thank you for agreeing with my correction. I have no idea when nice first life and nasty first life appeared, but I would suggest that both were equipped with the means of attacking or defending. My proposed means for both is a form of intelligence, and this may have been designed by your God.
DAVID (under “Brain expansion”):The bold forgets my discussions of molecular errors. In advancing evolution God can not trust a DNA design mechanism totally on its own!
dhw: Your discussion of molecular errors finished up with you telling us to ignore them and focus on the 99.99999% success rate.
DAVID: Twisted distortion of my argument. To keep on living each organism needs precise editing. In evolution God is always the final editor. Two separate topics.
And: The error problem constantly confuses you. You can't separate the two issues, namely mistakes of cell reproduction during life, handled very competently by editing, but not completely, and the problem of DNA errors as they might influence evolutionary advances. In that issue, God in charge of evolution edits to produces what He wishes.
I don’t know what you think I’ve distorted. According to the latest edition of your evolutionary errors theory, they were just “slight variations” which he allowed through because they would not change the course of evolution. But now, up there in bold, you’ve got your God personally operating on a group of Moroccan brains because he himself “cannot trust” the mechanism he designed. So fear of what errors would have made him intervene and directly expand pre-sapiens brains? To keep on living, each organism needs the system to work without uncorrectable errors. According to you, he could not prevent errors, tried his best to correct them, created backups which didn’t always work, and finally left it to us to correct the errors he couldn’t correct. However, these apparently amount to only 0.000001% of the system, so you wrote: “stick to wonderment with me”, and “the point of the error discussion is to show you that despite the errors the vast majority of all organisms continue throughout their lives unchanged due to the excellent editing”, and I should “concentrate on the amazing accuracy of his editing system”.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 01, 2020, 15:36 (1542 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: Since death was “required”, disease-causing errors were essential, but if some nasty molecules had the freedom to find ways of killing us, other molecules had the freedom to find ways of fighting the nasty molecules. (Hence the ever evolving immune system, and human ingenuity in finding cures.) But even if they succeeded, your God had built in death from old age. Isn’t this a better analogy, and a more respectful one for your God, who in your version has lost control, tries to regain it but sometimes fails?
DAVID:[…] Stop trying to revise what you apparently think is a terrible version of my God.
dhw: It is you who insist that your God could not prevent the disease-causing errors arising from the system he designed, tried to stop or correct them, but sometimes failed. What have I “revised”? My analogy proposes that he designed precisely what he wanted to design. What is your objection?
The bold is right on point. God knew the consequences of what He designed. You and I seem to interpret the results of that design differently. You think He enjoyed having errors, and I feel He tried carefully to edit them out.
DAVID: My point still is first life had to be designed with immunity defense mechanisms when the organisms appeared. They didn't appear by chance.dhw: Your point was what I have bolded above. Hence my answer. Thank you for agreeing with my correction. I have no idea when nice first life and nasty first life appeared, but I would suggest that both were equipped with the means of attacking or defending. My proposed means for both is a form of intelligence, and this may have been designed by your God.
I'l stick with God.
DAVID (under “Brain expansion”):The bold forgets my discussions of molecular errors. In advancing evolution God can not trust a DNA design mechanism totally on its own!dhw: Your discussion of molecular errors finished up with you telling us to ignore them and focus on the 99.99999% success rate.
DAVID: Twisted distortion of my argument. To keep on living each organism needs precise editing. In evolution God is always the final editor. Two separate topics.
And: The error problem constantly confuses you. You can't separate the two issues, namely mistakes of cell reproduction during life, handled very competently by editing, but not completely, and the problem of DNA errors as they might influence evolutionary advances. In that issue, God in charge of evolution edits to produces what He wishes.dhw: I don’t know what you think I’ve distorted. According to the latest edition of your evolutionary errors theory, they were just “slight variations” which he allowed through because they would not change the course of evolution.
Correct.
dhw: But now, up there in bold, you’ve got your God personally operating on a group of Moroccan brains because he himself “cannot trust” the mechanism he designed. So fear of what errors would have made him intervene and directly expand pre-sapiens brains? To keep on living, each organism needs the system to work without uncorrectable errors. According to you, he could not prevent errors, tried his best to correct them, created backups which didn’t always work, and finally left it to us to correct the errors he couldn’t correct. However, these apparently amount to only 0.000001% of the system, so you wrote: “stick to wonderment with me”, and “the point of the error discussion is to show you that despite the errors the vast majority of all organisms continue throughout their lives unchanged due to the excellent editing”, and I should “concentrate on the amazing accuracy of his editing system”.
You have conjured up a strange paragraph of words by again seemingly to conflate errors while living with errors while evolving. Two totally different issues from the same source of trouble. Errors while living are mostly edited out, but some get by. For evolutionary advances God carefully codes DNA/genomes to insure properly planned advances in form and function. Clear???
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: Since death was “required”, disease-causing errors were essential, but if some nasty molecules had the freedom to find ways of killing us, other molecules had the freedom to find ways of fighting the nasty molecules. (Hence the ever evolving immune system, and human ingenuity in finding cures.) But even if they succeeded, your God had built in death from old age. Isn’t this a better analogy, and a more respectful one for your God, who in your version has lost control, tries to regain it but sometimes fails?
DAVID:[…] Stop trying to revise what you apparently think is a terrible version of my God.
dhw: It is you who insist that your God could not prevent the disease-causing errors arising from the system he designed, tried to stop or correct them, but sometimes failed. What have I “revised”? My analogy proposes that he designed precisely what he wanted to design. What is your objection?
DAVID: The bold is right on point. God knew the consequences of what He designed. You and I seem to interpret the results of that design differently. You think He enjoyed having errors, and I feel He tried carefully to edit them out.
I have not said that he enjoyed the errors! Enjoyment of his own creativity is one possible reason for his creating the ever-changing spectacle of life in the first place. (You demanded that I should ignore what you call the 0.000001% of errors and wonder at the successes. Why shouldn’t he also wonder at his successes?) Knowing the consequences of errors he did not want is not the same as designing what he wanted!
DAVID: My point still is first life had to be designed with immunity defense mechanisms when the organisms appeared. They didn't appear by chance.
dhw: Your point was what I have bolded above. [David's claim that a particular form of immunity had to be designed into the first appearance of each new species.] Hence my answer. Thank you for agreeing with my correction. I have no idea when nice first life and nasty first life appeared, but I would suggest that both were equipped with the means of attacking or defending. My proposed means for both is a form of intelligence, and this may have been designed by your God.
DAVID: I'll stick with God.
No problem. My point here is that both the goodies and the baddies must have had means of defending/attacking, and I propose that this means was/is a form of intelligence. Thank you for not disagreeing.
DAVID: God in charge of evolution edits to produces what He wishes.
dhw: According to the latest edition of your evolutionary errors theory, they were just “slight variations” which he allowed through because they would not change the course of evolution. (dhw's bolds in view of David's "conjuring" trick below.)
DAVID: Correct.
dhw: But now, up there in bold ["In advancing evolution God cannot trust a DNA design mechanism totally on its own!"], you’ve got your God personally operating on a group of Moroccan brains because he himself “cannot trust” the mechanism he designed. So fear of what errors would have made him intervene and directly expand pre-sapiens brains? To keep on living, each organism needs the system to work without uncorrectable errors. According to you, he could not prevent errors, tried his best to correct them, created backups which didn’t always work, and finally left it to us to correct the errors he couldn’t correct. However, these apparently amount to only 0.000001% of the system, so you wrote: “stick to wonderment with me”, and “the point of the error discussion is to show you that despite the errors the vast majority of all organisms continue throughout their lives unchanged due to the excellent editing”, and I should “concentrate on the amazing accuracy of his editing system”.
DAVID: You have conjured up a strange paragraph of words by again seemingly to conflate errors while living with errors while evolving. Two totally different issues from the same source of trouble. Errors while living are mostly edited out, but some get by. For evolutionary advances God carefully codes DNA/genomes to insure properly planned advances in form and function. Clear???
There is no conflation! My paragraph started by pointing out the anomaly of your God not trusting his own evolutionary system and having to perform a brain operation because of possible “slight variations” that would have no influence on the course of evolution! I then asked you a question, which you have not answered. I went on to deal with your statement that “to keep on living each organism needs precise editing”, and assumed you would realize we were now talking about disease-causing errors. You had earlier denied that your solution to this problem was to tell me to forget about them and only think about the successes, and so I provided the relevant quotes. You do not help your case by constantly manufacturing and demolishing your own straw men and by changing the subject instead of directly responding to the arguments!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 02, 2020, 20:45 (1541 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: My point still is first life had to be designed with immunity defense mechanisms when the organisms appeared. They didn't appear by chance.
dhw: Your point was what I have bolded above. [David's claim that a particular form of immunity had to be designed into the first appearance of each new species.] Hence my answer. Thank you for agreeing with my correction. I have no idea when nice first life and nasty first life appeared, but I would suggest that both were equipped with the means of attacking or defending. My proposed means for both is a form of intelligence, and this may have been designed by your God.
DAVID: I'll stick with God.
dhw: No problem. My point here is that both the goodies and the baddies must have had means of defending/attacking, and I propose that this means was/is a form of intelligence. Thank you for not disagreeing.
I'll stick with God means He gave them the intelligent mechanisms to use.
DAVID: God in charge of evolution edits to produces what He wishes.dhw: According to the latest edition of your evolutionary errors theory, they were just “slight variations” which he allowed through because they would not change the course of evolution. (dhw's bolds in view of David's "conjuring" trick below.)
DAVID: Correct.
dhw: But now, up there in bold ["In advancing evolution God cannot trust a DNA design mechanism totally on its own!"], you’ve got your God personally operating on a group of Moroccan brains because he himself “cannot trust” the mechanism he designed. So fear of what errors would have made him intervene and directly expand pre-sapiens brains? To keep on living, each organism needs the system to work without uncorrectable errors. According to you, he could not prevent errors, tried his best to correct them, created backups which didn’t always work, and finally left it to us to correct the errors he couldn’t correct. However, these apparently amount to only 0.000001% of the system, so you wrote: “stick to wonderment with me”, and “the point of the error discussion is to show you that despite the errors the vast majority of all organisms continue throughout their lives unchanged due to the excellent editing”, and I should “concentrate on the amazing accuracy of his editing system”.
DAVID: You have conjured up a strange paragraph of words by again seemingly to conflate errors while living with errors while evolving. Two totally different issues from the same source of trouble. Errors while living are mostly edited out, but some get by. For evolutionary advances God carefully codes DNA/genomes to insure properly planned advances in form and function. Clear???
dhw: There is no conflation! My paragraph started by pointing out the anomaly of your God not trusting his own evolutionary system and having to perform a brain operation because of possible “slight variations” that would have no influence on the course of evolution! I then asked you a question, which you have not answered. I went on to deal with your statement that “to keep on living each organism needs precise editing”, and assumed you would realize we were now talking about disease-causing errors. You had earlier denied that your solution to this problem was to tell me to forget about them and only think about the successes, and so I provided the relevant quotes. You do not help your case by constantly manufacturing and demolishing your own straw men and by changing the subject instead of directly responding to the arguments!
I think the paragraph from me above our reply is quite clear as to how I view God handling errors that cannot be controlled. Separating considerations of errors while living from errors in evolution has been a problem. I think that separation is clear now. I'm not demolished of you are not, and thanks to you I have a clear theory about it all.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: My point here is that both the goodies and the baddies must have had means of defending/attacking, and I propose that this means was/is a form of intelligence. Thank you for not disagreeing.
DAVID: I'll stick with God means He gave them the intelligent mechanisms to use.
Thank you. I am delighted to see that at last you have call them “intelligent mechanisms”.
DAVID: You have conjured up a strange paragraph of words by again seemingly to conflate errors while living with errors while evolving. Two totally different issues from the same source of trouble. Errors while living are mostly edited out, but some get by. For evolutionary advances God carefully codes DNA/genomes to insure properly planned advances in form and function. Clear???
dhw: There is no conflation! My paragraph started by pointing out the anomaly of your God not trusting his own evolutionary system and having to perform a brain operation because of possible “slight variations” that would have no influence on the course of evolution! I then asked you a question, which you have not answered. I went on to deal with your statement that “to keep on living each organism needs precise editing”, and assumed you would realize we were now talking about disease-causing errors. You had earlier denied that your solution to this problem was to tell me to forget about them and only think about the successes, and so I provided the relevant quotes. You do not help your case by constantly manufacturing and demolishing your own straw men and by changing the subject instead of directly responding to the arguments!
DAVID: I think the paragraph from me above your reply is quite clear as to how I view God handling errors that cannot be controlled. Separating considerations of errors while living from errors in evolution has been a problem. I think that separation is clear now. I'm not demolished of you are not, and thanks to you I have a clear theory about it all.
I appreciate the acknowledgement, but the separation has always been clear and has never been a problem. The problems have been twofold: 1) You began by arguing that evolutionary errors could change the course of evolution and God could do nothing but allow or destroy them, and you have finished by arguing that evolutionary errors can’t change the course of evolution and God can edit them. That is now clear. 2) You began by telling us that disease-causing errors were not God’s fault, he did his best to correct them, and has left it to us to go on trying to correct them (though at the same time you said he didn’t bother about them). Now you are telling us that they only amount to 0.000001% of the total system, and we should concentrate on all the success stories instead. I find both proposals extremely dissatisfying and surprisingly disrespectful towards your God, who emerges as incompetent. I have proposed that the system he designed, complete with so-called “errors”, is precisely the system he wanted to design, giving molecules the freedom to do their own designing, attacking and defending. It's still not clear to me why this proposal is unacceptable to you.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, September 03, 2020, 19:34 (1540 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: There is no conflation! My paragraph started by pointing out the anomaly of your God not trusting his own evolutionary system and having to perform a brain operation because of possible “slight variations” that would have no influence on the course of evolution! I then asked you a question, which you have not answered. I went on to deal with your statement that “to keep on living each organism needs precise editing”, and assumed you would realize we were now talking about disease-causing errors. You had earlier denied that your solution to this problem was to tell me to forget about them and only think about the successes, and so I provided the relevant quotes. You do not help your case by constantly manufacturing and demolishing your own straw men and by changing the subject instead of directly responding to the arguments!
DAVID: I think the paragraph from me above your reply is quite clear as to how I view God handling errors that cannot be controlled. Separating considerations of errors while living from errors in evolution has been a problem. I think that separation is clear now. I'm not demolished if you are not, and thanks to you I have a clear theory about it all.
dhw: I appreciate the acknowledgement, but the separation has always been clear and has never been a problem. The problems have been twofold: 1) You began by arguing that evolutionary errors could change the course of evolution and God could do nothing but allow or destroy them, and you have finished by arguing that evolutionary errors can’t change the course of evolution and God can edit them. That is now clear. 2) You began by telling us that disease-causing errors were not God’s fault, he did his best to correct them, and has left it to us to go on trying to correct them (though at the same time you said he didn’t bother about them). Now you are telling us that they only amount to 0.000001% of the total system, and we should concentrate on all the success stories instead. I find both proposals extremely dissatisfying and surprisingly disrespectful towards your God, who emerges as incompetent. I have proposed that the system he designed, complete with so-called “errors”, is precisely the system he wanted to design, giving molecules the freedom to do their own designing, attacking and defending. It's still not clear to me why this proposal is unacceptable to you.
God's incompetence is your interpretation in bold, certainly not mine. The red colored sentence is not what molecules do. They are under God's instructions for their actions. All I have said is they can make a mistake in proper folding and God put in editing mechanisms to limit those mistakes, because He recognized the problem in advance. What you do not understand is that the system is miraculously accurate and you seem surprised when I point it out. Think about it. It is the only living system we know. I view it as probably the only system God could develop. There are physico-chemical limits to what can work. I'm not feeling disrespectful at all, and am surprised at your total misinterpretation of how I feel about God's work.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: I think the paragraph from me above your reply is quite clear as to how I view God handling errors that cannot be controlled. Separating considerations of errors while living from errors in evolution has been a problem. I think that separation is clear now. I'm not demolished if you are not, and thanks to you I have a clear theory about it all.
dhw: I appreciate the acknowledgement, but the separation has always been clear and has never been a problem. The problems have been twofold: 1) You began by arguing that evolutionary errors could change the course of evolution and God could do nothing but allow or destroy them, and you have finished by arguing that evolutionary errors can’t change the course of evolution and God can edit them. That is now clear. 2) You began by telling us that disease-causing errors were not God’s fault, he did his best to correct them, and has left it to us to go on trying to correct them (though at the same time you said he didn’t bother about them). Now you are telling us that they only amount to 0.000001% of the total system, and we should concentrate on all the success stories instead. I find both proposals extremely dissatisfying and surprisingly disrespectful towards your God, who emerges as incompetent. I have proposed that the system he designed, complete with so-called “errors”, is precisely the system he wanted to design, giving molecules the freedom to do their own designing, attacking and defending. It's still not clear to me why this proposal is unacceptable to you.
DAVID: God's incompetence is your interpretation in bold, certainly not mine.
A God who created a system that produces errors, does his best to correct them, sometimes fails and leaves it to us to do what he could not do, seems to me to be incompetent.
DAVID: The red colored sentence is not what molecules do. They are under God's instructions for their actions.
But they are free to make "mistakes"! You keep telling us that your God can’t prevent them from doing so! The difference between us is that you say it’s not his fault and, in the case of disease-producing errors, he does his best to correct them. I propose that he deliberately gave them their freedom, and indeed that is what has led to the vast variety of life’s bushes (evolutionary "errors") and also to the required phenomenon of death (disease-causing "errors").
DAVID: All I have said is they can make a mistake in proper folding and God put in editing mechanisms to limit those mistakes, because He recognized the problem in advance. What you do not understand is that the system is miraculously accurate and you seem surprised when I point it out. Think about it. It is the only living system we know. I view it as probably the only system God could develop.
And there you go again: I should concentrate on the successes. I agree with you completely: life and reproduction and evolution are miraculously wonderful, but you have raised the subject of errors and now you want me to ignore them!
DAVID: There are physico-chemical limits to what can work. I'm not feeling disrespectful at all, and am surprised at your total misinterpretation of how I feel about God's work.
I have explained above why I think your interpretation is disrespectful: you assume that God tried and failed to correct some of the disease-causing errors in the system he designed. (Let’s not bother with the evolutionary errors, which initially had you reversing all your own beliefs in design and his direct control over evolution and instead relying on random mutations.) The alternative I offer is that he designed what he wanted to design. Far more respectful.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, September 04, 2020, 18:14 (1539 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: God's incompetence is your interpretation in bold, certainly not mine.
dhw: A God who created a system that produces errors, does his best to correct them, sometimes fails and leaves it to us to do what he could not do, seems to me to be incompetent.
The system is an electro-physical-chemical process in soup. Negative ions look for positive ions to achieve a quiet neutral state and the result is folding, a change in 3-D molecular shape which produces function/s. It is an amazing mechanism. Think if it. Shape produces function!!! Shape carries information!! God provides mitigation but not all editing is perfect, any more than regular living function is perfect. I am in awe of what living biochemistry accomplishes. But I've been trained in biochemistry and physical chemistry. I've raised the error issue because I knew it had to be addressed for completeness.
DAVID: The red colored sentence is not what molecules do. They are under God's instructions for their actions.dhw: But they are free to make "mistakes"! You keep telling us that your God can’t prevent them from doing so! The difference between us is that you say it’s not his fault and, in the case of disease-producing errors, he does his best to correct them. I propose that he deliberately gave them their freedom, and indeed that is what has led to the vast variety of life’s bushes (evolutionary "errors") and also to the required phenomenon of death (disease-causing "errors").
The bold is wrong, in my view. God could not have control under the system He created, and we do not know if any other system is available for use in life. My thought is God used the only system He could create, since He is the created of reality. And again you ignore the point that most aging is built in necessarily.
dhw: And there you go again: I should concentrate on the successes. I agree with you completely: life and reproduction and evolution are miraculously wonderful, but you have raised the subject of errors and now you want me to ignore them!DAVID: There are physico-chemical limits to what can work. I'm not feeling disrespectful at all, and am surprised at your total misinterpretation of how I feel about God's work.
dhw: I have explained above why I think your interpretation is disrespectful: you assume that God tried and failed to correct some of the disease-causing errors in the system he designed. The alternative I offer is that he designed what he wanted to design. Far more respectful.
My only problem is your misinterpretation of my presentation of living biochemistry. I am fine about God's efforts since I fully understand the problems.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: God's incompetence is your interpretation in bold, certainly not mine.
dhw: A God who created a system that produces errors, does his best to correct them, sometimes fails and leaves it to us to do what he could not do, seems to me to be incompetent.
DAVID: The system is an electro-physical-chemical process in soup. Negative ions look for positive ions to achieve a quiet neutral state and the result is folding, a change in 3-D molecular shape which produces function/s. It is an amazing mechanism. Think if it. Shape produces function!!! Shape carries information!! God provides mitigation but not all editing is perfect, any more than regular living function is perfect. I am in awe of what living biochemistry accomplishes. But I've been trained in biochemistry and physical chemistry. I've raised the error issue because I knew it had to be addressed for completeness.
And after making a complete hash of evolutionary “errors”, you are now telling me to forget about disease-causing “errors” and concentrate on your God’s successes. I share your awe at what living biochemistry accomplishes, but it gets us nowhere in your quest to explain the “errors”. I have offered you an explanation.
dhw: I have proposed that the system he designed, complete with so-called “errors”, is precisely the system he wanted to design, giving molecules the freedom to do their own designing, attacking and defending.
DAVID: The red colored sentence is not what molecules do. They are under God's instructions for their actions.
dhw: But they are free to make "mistakes"! You keep telling us that your God can’t prevent them from doing so! The difference between us is that you say it’s not his fault and, in the case of disease-producing errors, he does his best to correct them. I propose that he deliberately gave them their freedom, and indeed that is what has led to the vast variety of life’s bushes (evolutionary "errors") and also to the required phenomenon of death (disease-causing "errors").
DAVID: The bold is wrong, in my view. God could not have control under the system He created, and we do not know if any other system is available for use in life. My thought is God used the only system He could create, since He is the created of reality. And again you ignore the point that most aging is built in necessarily.
You are once again harping on your God’s lack of control, whereas in the past your God has always been in control of everything. If your God could not prevent molecules from disobeying his instructions, then they were free to disobey his instructions and do their own designing, defending and attacking! Either he did or he didn’t want that to happen. And you are right, we don’t know if another system is possible, so why do you assume your all-powerful God couldn’t have created one? I’m not saying my proposal is right – I don’t know the truth any more than you do. But I look for an explanation that makes sense. Why doesn’t my proposal make sense? It incorporates ageing and death – all in keeping with what God WANTED to create, instead of your proposal that he wanted ageing and death but didn’t want all the nasty “errors” which he tried to correct but in many cases couldn’t, and therefore left to us to do what he couldn’t do.
dhw: I have explained above why I think your interpretation is disrespectful: you assume that God tried and failed to correct some of the disease-causing errors in the system he designed. The alternative I offer is that he designed what he wanted to design. Far more respectful.
DAVID: My only problem is your misinterpretation of my presentation of living biochemistry. I am fine about God's efforts since I fully understand the problems.
I fully accept your presentation of living biology. I do not accept your muddled explanation of the evolutionary errors or your non-explanation of the disease-causing errors, which you now want me to ignore.
Under “Biological complexity: removing cellular garbage”
DAVID: The system had to be in place with the appearance of the first cells, for continuous garbage accumulation would lead to cell death. Only design fits. This thought applies to origin of life. The very first cells that lived had to have a garbage system as an integral part of the cell. And obviously this is a very important part of God's error control editing system.
I think you should drop this whole concept of “error”, which is thoroughly misleading. According to your original theory, “errors” were mistakes which could not be prevented. You got into a complete tangle over evolutionary “errors”, and you are still in a tangle over disease-causing “errors”, which also “lead to cell death” – but you don’t even want to talk about them any more. Now all of a sudden we have a new category: garbage. Why do you regard the removal of unnecessary matter as editing a mistake? Shrinkage of the brain entails getting rid of unnecessary cells. Were they a mistake? You even support the theory that the whole of evolution is based on discarding unnecessary genes. So if God’s only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply, were all the preceding and now extinct life forms and food supplies an “error”?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, September 05, 2020, 19:06 (1538 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: I have proposed that the system he designed, complete with so-called “errors”, is precisely the system he wanted to design, giving molecules the freedom to do their own designing, attacking and defending.
DAVID: The red colored sentence is not what molecules do. They are under God's instructions for their actions.
dhw: But they are free to make "mistakes"! You keep telling us that your God can’t prevent them from doing so! The difference between us is that you say it’s not his fault and, in the case of disease-producing errors, he does his best to correct them. I propose that he deliberately gave them their freedom, and indeed that is what has led to the vast variety of life’s bushes (evolutionary "errors") and also to the required phenomenon of death (disease-causing "errors").
DAVID: The bold is wrong, in my view. God could not have control under the system He created, and we do not know if any other system is available for use in life. My thought is God used the only system He could create, since He is the creator of reality. And again you ignore the point that most aging is built in necessarily.
dhw: You are once again harping on your God’s lack of control, whereas in the past your God has always been in control of everything. If your God could not prevent molecules from disobeying his instructions, then they were free to disobey his instructions and do their own designing, defending and attacking! Either he did or he didn’t want that to happen. And you are right, we don’t know if another system is possible, so why do you assume your all-powerful God couldn’t have created one? I’m not saying my proposal is right – I don’t know the truth any more than you do. But I look for an explanation that makes sense. Why doesn’t my proposal make sense? It incorporates ageing and death – all in keeping with what God WANTED to create, instead of your proposal that he wanted ageing and death but didn’t want all the nasty “errors” which he tried to correct but in many cases couldn’t, and therefore left to us to do what he couldn’t do.
You keep forgetting or ignoring that our bodies are constantly under reproduction and that process must be protected from serious error. And that is all I have shown you. God has almost always protected us from them with His very complex amazing systems. We know He cannot have total control over molecules that are free to make mistakes. As for this 'problem' system I firmly believe it is the only one He could create. We have discussed the dangerous events in the universe that might affect us. I accept that our God created the best systems that could be created, and there are no others possible in a quantum based reality. My view of God is certainly not yours.
Under “Biological complexity: removing cellular garbage”DAVID: The system had to be in place with the appearance of the first cells, for continuous garbage accumulation would lead to cell death. Only design fits. This thought applies to origin of life. The very first cells that lived had to have a garbage system as an integral part of the cell. And obviously this is a very important part of God's error control editing system.
dhw: I think you should drop this whole concept of “error”, which is thoroughly misleading. According to your original theory, “errors” were mistakes which could not be prevented. You got into a complete tangle over evolutionary “errors”, and you are still in a tangle over disease-causing “errors”, which also “lead to cell death” – but you don’t even want to talk about them any more. Now all of a sudden we have a new category: garbage. Why do you regard the removal of unnecessary matter as editing a mistake? Shrinkage of the brain entails getting rid of unnecessary cells. Were they a mistake? You even support the theory that the whole of evolution is based on discarding unnecessary genes. So if God’s only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply, were all the preceding and now extinct life forms and food supplies an “error”?
The first cells had to have a garbage removal system. I'm in no tangle about the subject of life while intense reproduction is occurring. What you haven't absorbed from the article is garbage includes misfolded molecules!!! So garbage removal is part of the error editing system. Did you read the first sentence I wrote in that entry?:
"This is part of the error control system as it removes from the cells waste and improperly formed protein molecules:"
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: You keep forgetting or ignoring that our bodies are constantly under reproduction and that process must be protected from serious error. And that is all I have shown you. God has almost always protected us from them with His very complex amazing systems.
You keep forgetting that our bodies must age and die (deliberately planned), but that there are serious, unplanned disease-causing errors from which your God has not protected us, and which you wanted to explain on this thread. You have not explained them. You have told us they merely constitute 0.000001% of the system, and we should concentrate instead on how well the system works.
DAVID: We know He cannot have total control over molecules that are free to make mistakes. As for this 'problem' system I firmly believe it is the only one He could create. We have discussed the dangerous events in the universe that might affect us. I accept that our God created the best systems that could be created, and there are no others possible in a quantum based reality.
How do you know what is possible in a quantum-based reality which nobody can understand? On Friday you wrote; “We do not know if any other system is available for use in life”. It’s your belief that this is the only possible one. In any case, that does not exclude the possibility that this system is precisely the system your God WANTED. You admit that molecules are free to “make mistakes”, and those “mistakes” have resulted in diseases which your God cannot control. But if molecules are free to do their own thing and turn nasty, maybe God also gave molecules the freedom to be nice and to combat the nastiness. Immunity, after all, is an ongoing process – new diseases demand new defences. And maybe this “freedom” is the key to how the whole of evolution has developed.
Under “Biological complexity: removing cellular garbage”
DAVID: The system had to be in place with the appearance of the first cells, for continuous garbage accumulation would lead to cell death. Only design fits. This thought applies to origin of life. The very first cells that lived had to have a garbage system as an integral part of the cell. And obviously this is a very important part of God's error control editing system.
dhw: I think you should drop this whole concept of “error”, which is thoroughly misleading. According to your original theory, “errors” were mistakes which could not be prevented. You got into a complete tangle over evolutionary “errors”, and you are still in a tangle over disease-causing “errors”…. Now all of a sudden we have a new category: garbage. Why do you regard the removal of unnecessary matter as editing a mistake? Shrinkage of the brain entails getting rid of unnecessary cells. Were they a mistake? You even support the theory that the whole of evolution is based on discarding unnecessary genes. So if God’s only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply, were all the preceding and now extinct life forms and food supplies an “error”?
DAVID: The first cells had to have a garbage removal system. I'm in no tangle about the subject of life while intense reproduction is occurring. What you haven't absorbed from the article is garbage includes misfolded molecules!!! So garbage removal is part of the error editing system. Did you read the first sentence I wrote in that entry?:
"This is part of the error control system as it removes from the cells waste and improperly formed protein molecules:"
I see what you mean, but I was thinking in more general terms of garbage as unnecessary stuff. (You said "including" and also waste AND the molecules.) It's not important. My point is also more general - that your theory of evolutionary and disease-causing “errors” has already resulted in confusion, as described above, and now we have unnecessary material (including improperly formed molecules) as another category of "error", which raises the questions I’ve asked above. I think the term “errors” is causing us nothing but trouble.
Under: Quantum physics: a different theory
DAVID: In living biochemistry which is not a controllable entity, in the same way that physics processes are, errors can occur and some don't fully appreciate the differences and either blame God for these errors or somehow think He purposely planned them. The plain reasoning is God fully knew what He was doing and knew errors would occur, proved by all the editing mechanisms He designed.
If God exists, I would certainly believe he knew what he was doing. I would not for one moment expect him to design a system full of errors he could not control, as you initially claimed for “evolutionary” errors and as is all too evident from the uncorrected disease-causing errors. See above for the rest of my proposal (bolded), which contains no “blame” at all but only the suggestion that he designed what he wanted to design, as opposed to designing what he did not want to design but had to design because…because what? He is not clever enough, and so had to leave it to us to try and correct the errors he couldn’t correct.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Sunday, September 06, 2020, 14:55 (1537 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: We know He cannot have total control over molecules that are free to make mistakes. As for this 'problem' system I firmly believe it is the only one He could create. We have discussed the dangerous events in the universe that might affect us. I accept that our God created the best systems that could be created, and there are no others possible in a quantum based reality.
dhw: How do you know what is possible in a quantum-based reality which nobody can understand? On Friday you wrote; “We do not know if any other system is available for use in life”. It’s your belief that this is the only possible one. In any case, that does not exclude the possibility that this system is precisely the system your God WANTED. You admit that molecules are free to “make mistakes”, and those “mistakes” have resulted in diseases which your God cannot control. But if molecules are free to do their own thing and turn nasty, maybe God also gave molecules the freedom to be nice and to combat the nastiness. Immunity, after all, is an ongoing process – new diseases demand new defences. And maybe this “freedom” is the key to how the whole of evolution has developed.
What you do not understand about biochemistry is the molecules are free to make mistakes, and there is no way to completely control them. God did not choose to give them freedom in our living system. The system itself of high speed reactions forced by enzymes requires that the molecules fold as instructed moment by moment (in pico-seconds) and mistakes must be edited out, which they generally are or we would not live as long we do/
Under “Biological complexity: removing cellular garbage”DAVID: The system had to be in place with the appearance of the first cells, for continuous garbage accumulation would lead to cell death. Only design fits. This thought applies to origin of life. The very first cells that lived had to have a garbage system as an integral part of the cell. And obviously this is a very important part of God's error control editing system.
dhw: I think you should drop this whole concept of “error”, which is thoroughly misleading. According to your original theory, “errors” were mistakes which could not be prevented. You got into a complete tangle over evolutionary “errors”, and you are still in a tangle over disease-causing “errors”…. Now all of a sudden we have a new category: garbage. Why do you regard the removal of unnecessary matter as editing a mistake? Shrinkage of the brain entails getting rid of unnecessary cells. Were they a mistake? You even support the theory that the whole of evolution is based on discarding unnecessary genes. So if God’s only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply, were all the preceding and now extinct life forms and food supplies an “error”?
DAVID: The first cells had to have a garbage removal system. I'm in no tangle about the subject of life while intense reproduction is occurring. What you haven't absorbed from the article is garbage includes misfolded molecules!!! So garbage removal is part of the error editing system. Did you read the first sentence I wrote in that entry?:
"This is part of the error control system as it removes from the cells waste and improperly formed protein molecules:"dhw: I see what you mean, but I was thinking in more general terms of garbage as unnecessary stuff. (You said "including" and also waste AND the molecules.) It's not important. My point is also more general - that your theory of evolutionary and disease-causing “errors” has already resulted in confusion, as described above, and now we have unnecessary material (including improperly formed molecules) as another category of "error", which raises the questions I’ve asked above. I think the term “errors” is causing us nothing but trouble.
It is your trouble in understanding what I am trying to present. Errors exist, cannot be ignored
Under: Quantum physics: a different theoryDAVID: In living biochemistry which is not a controllable entity, in the same way that physics processes are, errors can occur and some don't fully appreciate the differences and either blame God for these errors or somehow think He purposely planned them. The plain reasoning is God fully knew what He was doing and knew errors would occur, proved by all the editing mechanisms He designed.
dhw: If God exists, I would certainly believe he knew what he was doing. I would not for one moment expect him to design a system full of errors he could not control, as you initially claimed for “evolutionary” errors and as is all too evident from the uncorrected disease-causing errors. See above for the rest of my proposal (bolded), which contains no “blame” at all but only the suggestion that he designed what he wanted to design, as opposed to designing what he did not want to design but had to design because…because what? He is not clever enough, and so had to leave it to us to try and correct the errors he couldn’t correct.
Of course He designed what He wanted to design with the potential of errors in mind
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: We know He cannot have total control over molecules that are free to make mistakes. As for this 'problem' system I firmly believe it is the only one He could create. We have discussed the dangerous events in the universe that might affect us. I accept that our God created the best systems that could be created, and there are no others possible in a quantum based reality.
dhw: How do you know what is possible in a quantum-based reality which nobody can understand? On Friday you wrote; “We do not know if any other system is available for use in life”. It’s your belief that this is the only possible one. In any case, that does not exclude the possibility that this system is precisely the system your God WANTED. You admit that molecules are free to “make mistakes”, and those “mistakes” have resulted in diseases which your God cannot control. But if molecules are free to do their own thing and turn nasty, maybe God also gave molecules the freedom to be nice and to combat the nastiness. Immunity, after all, is an ongoing process – new diseases demand new defences. And maybe this “freedom” is the key to how the whole of evolution has developed.
DAVID: What you do not understand about biochemistry is the molecules are free to make mistakes, and there is no way to completely control them. God did not choose to give them freedom in our living system.
I have understood perfectly that molecules are free to make mistakes. What you do not understand is that your God’s intentions have nothing to do with biochemistry. It is not a biochemical fact that your God did not CHOOSE to give them their freedom! And you have not given me a single reason why it is not possible for your God to have deliberately CHOSEN to design this system with all its “errors” (as opposed to designing a system with errors he did not want to design).
DAVID: The system itself of high speed reactions forced by enzymes requires that the molecules fold as instructed moment by moment (in pico-seconds) and mistakes must be edited out, which they generally are or we would not live as long we do.
If God exists he designed a system that produces errors which, according to you, cause ageing and death – which he required – and diseases which he did not require but which he is/was incapable of “editing”, and so he left it to us humans to find a way of doing so. These errors are a problem for you, and so you keep trying to minimize them, although as a doctor you yourself spent a lifetime trying to do what God could not do!
dhw: … your theory of evolutionary and disease-causing “errors” has already resulted in confusion, as described above, and now we have unnecessary material (including improperly formed molecules) as another category of "error", which raises the questions I’ve asked above. I think the term “errors” is causing us nothing but trouble.
DAVID: It is your trouble in understanding what I am trying to present. Errors exist, cannot be ignored.
It is you who keep trying to ignore the errors! In your confusion, you have now told us that evolutionary errors changed the course of evolution but oops, actually, no, they were insignificant “slight variations”. And errors causing disease only amount to 0.000001% of the system so we should ignore them and focus on the successes. Now we have garbage errors, which means that God has organized a means of getting rid of whatever unnecessary bits and pieces resulted from the system as he designed it. What other mess-ups will you find in his design, I wonder. I did actually suggest that excess brain cells may have been an “error” on his part, since you thought he created them, but if I remember rightly you pooh-poohed that idea because God is always in total control (except, of course, when he’s not). Yes, I do have trouble understanding what you are trying to present, and so do you, which is why I have proposed that you drop the subject.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, September 07, 2020, 15:39 (1536 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: What you do not understand about biochemistry is the molecules are free to make mistakes, and there is no way to completely control them. God did not choose to give them freedom in our living system.
dhw: I have understood perfectly that molecules are free to make mistakes. What you do not understand is that your God’s intentions have nothing to do with biochemistry. It is not a biochemical fact that your God did not CHOOSE to give them their freedom! And you have not given me a single reason why it is not possible for your God to have deliberately CHOSEN to design this system with all its “errors” (as opposed to designing a system with errors he did not want to design).
You have ignored the point that we do not know if another alternate biochemical living system constantly at work in production of product and reproduction is possible. We can only discuss the system we study. Assuming this is the only possible system, and using your point that God deliberately chose it as the best available system, He fully foresaw its problems and introduced magnificent editing systems. Perfectly logical and based on fact.
dhw: … your theory of evolutionary and disease-causing “errors” has already resulted in confusion, as described above, and now we have unnecessary material (including improperly formed molecules) as another category of "error", which raises the questions I’ve asked above. I think the term “errors” is causing us nothing but trouble.DAVID: It is your trouble in understanding what I am trying to present. Errors exist, cannot be ignored.
dhw: It is you who keep trying to ignore the errors! In your confusion, you have now told us that evolutionary errors changed the course of evolution but oops, actually, no, they were insignificant “slight variations”. And errors causing disease only amount to 0.000001% of the system so we should ignore them and focus on the successes. Now we have garbage errors, which means that God has organized a means of getting rid of whatever unnecessary bits and pieces resulted from the system as he designed it. What other mess-ups will you find in his design, I wonder. I did actually suggest that excess brain cells may have been an “error” on his part, since you thought he created them, but if I remember rightly you pooh-poohed that idea because God is always in total control (except, of course, when he’s not). Yes, I do have trouble understanding what you are trying to present, and so do you, which is why I have proposed that you drop the subject.
I have no problem in the presentation of the error problem. You now know about the problems errors in our living system create to raise the issue of how has the problem been solved. I'll repeat. I fully believe since most of us live long successful lives while most of our body parts are reproduced, it is obviously a very successful system God gave us, warts and all. As for your wonder about other mess-ups, I don't know of any others I ignored approaching over many years here. My God knew exactly what He was creating. Cellular garbage is handled beautifully by God's systems. Cells are factories in constant production and they have been given ways to get rid of unnecessary byproducts and broken machinery. All logical.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, September 07, 2020, 19:05 (1536 days ago) @ David Turell
How species age. A view of the mechanism:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-insights-aging.html
"What determines the life span of a mouse, alligator, dog or human? A team of scientists at the University of Georgia believes they have new insight into this age-old question.
"...a research team at the Odum School of Ecology and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, have presented a strong case that the mechanism lies at the intersection of the genome and epigenome.
***
"Their recent literature review, published in the journal Trends in Genetics, reports that a significant part of epigenetic aging occurs in regions with CpGs. A CpG is a region of DNA where the chemical elements cytosine and guanine are connected by a phosphate bond.
"'CpGs are important because DNA methylation occurs in the area," said Bertucci, the study's lead author. "Methylation adds a chemical code to the DNA strand that empowers the strand and tells it how to function. It can also turn genes on or off."
Scientists have observed that methylation patterns change as vertebrates age.
"'We know that certain changes occur in the genome at certain times. These changes can be modeled to create epigenetic clocks and occur in the region associated with developmental genes," he said. "You can take a blood sample to sequence DNA methylation and accurately predict age within several years."
"The activity that occurs in this area also determines a cell's fate—whether it will be a skin cell, neuron or a heart cell—but this is just one piece of the puzzle.
"Parrott said double-stranded breaks frequently occur in the genome throughout an organism's life span. These breaks are efficiently repaired by proteins and enzymes known as chromatin modifiers.
"According to the study, the chromatin modifiers leave the CpG Island to repair the breaks, and when they relocate, changes occur that alter gene expression and thus a cell's fate.
If we think of these chromatin modifiers as soldiers, their role becomes quite clear, Bertucci said.
"'They have unique power to support and enforce the code of the land, but if they leave the island to perform a rescue, the island becomes compromised and vulnerable if all of them don't return."
"Scientists have known for years that species with longer life spans such as humans, alligators and elephants have higher levels of CpGs than species like fish and rodents, Parrott said. He likens increased CpGs on the island to a bright light beaconing from a lighthouse that aids the relocated chromatin modifiers or RCMs to make their way back home safely. They also act as a buffer to keep the foundation of the epigenetic landscape intact when the RCMs move to repair the double-stranded breaks.
"The density of CpGs may not offer the total picture of life span, according to the researchers. Environmental factors and stress can also play a role."
Comment: This review shows us how God designed in a large portion of the aging mechanism. The last comment in the article indicates the role of wearing out
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: What you do not understand about biochemistry is the molecules are free to make mistakes, and there is no way to completely control them. God did not choose to give them freedom in our living system.
dhw: I have understood perfectly that molecules are free to make mistakes. What you do not understand is that your God’s intentions have nothing to do with biochemistry. It is not a biochemical fact that your God did not CHOOSE to give them their freedom! And you have not given me a single reason why it is not possible for your God to have deliberately CHOSEN to design this system with all its “errors” (as opposed to designing a system with errors he did not want to design).
DAVID: You have ignored the point that we do not know if another alternate biochemical living system constantly at work in production of product and reproduction is possible.
You told me I didn’t understand the biochemistry, and I pointed out that your God’s intentions have nothing to do with biochemistry. Now you switch to whether another system is possible. We don’t know. So how does that prove your God didn’t deliberately design this system, as opposed to having to look for ways of correcting unavoidable errors?
DAVID: We can only discuss the system we study. Assuming this is the only possible system, and using your point that God deliberately chose it as the best available system, He fully foresaw its problems and introduced magnificent editing systems. Perfectly logical and based on fact.
It is a fact that the system works wonderfully well except when it doesn’t. You started out by trying to explain the errors, and you have finished up by trying to ignore the errors. A particular problem is the “errors” that cause disease, which he tried to correct but in many cases couldn’t, although he actually designed the “errors” that cause ageing and death, because these are “required”. See below.
David: I have no problem in the presentation of the error problem.
You have so many problems with it that on the subject of evolution, you did a complete volte face, and on the subject of disease you have decided to ignore the errors and only talk about the successes.
DAVID: You now know about the problems errors in our living system create to raise the issue of how has the problem been solved. I'll repeat. I fully believe since most of us live long successful lives while most of our body parts are reproduced, it is obviously a very successful system God gave us, warts and all.
As above. You started out with problems, switched from Darwinian evolution by chance “errors” to evolution by design because the “errors” became “slight variations”, and after your God had not bothered about disease-causing errors, had nevertheless provided backups to correct them, and then left the uncorrected ones for us to deal with, you finally decided we should ignore them altogether and only focus on your God’s successes.
DAVID: As for your wonder about other mess-ups, I don't know of any others I ignored approaching over many years here. My God knew exactly what He was creating. Cellular garbage is handled beautifully by God's systems. Cells are factories in constant production and they have been given ways to get rid of unnecessary byproducts and broken machinery. All logical.
Of course it’s logical. It’s also logical to propose that as evolution progressed, and the factories produced the rubbish, the intelligent directors of the factory responded by devising means of getting rid of the rubbish, as opposed to their “being given” those means. (Of course your God may have given the owners the intelligence to invent those means.) Why do you have to call the rubbish an “error”? Are you simply trying once more to distract attention from the earlier mess by focusing on your God’s successes?
DAVID: How species age. A view of the mechanism:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-insights-aging.html
DAVID: This review shows us how God designed in a large portion of the aging mechanism. The last comment in the article indicates the role of wearing out.
Yes, one of the great incongruities in your "error" theory: your always-in-control-except-when-he-isn’t-in-control God deliberately designed the mechanisms for ageing and death, so they are not errors, but he could not possibly have designed the mechanisms for disease, which you may know as a retired doctor are errors that can cause death. Apparently these were not his fault, and he tried his best to correct them, but often failed and so left it to good folk like you to correct.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 08, 2020, 15:43 (1535 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: You have ignored the point that we do not know if another alternate biochemical living system constantly at work in production of product and reproduction is possible.
dhw: You told me I didn’t understand the biochemistry, and I pointed out that your God’s intentions have nothing to do with biochemistry. Now you switch to whether another system is possible. We don’t know. So how does that prove your God didn’t deliberately design this system, as opposed to having to look for ways of correcting unavoidable errors?
You refuse to recognize we can only study the system God gave us. As a biochemist I cannot imagine a system in which the molecular changes are totally under control except in a very cumbersome setup that would run sluggishly.
DAVID: We can only discuss the system we study. Assuming this is the only possible system, and using your point that God deliberately chose it as the best available system, He fully foresaw its problems and introduced magnificent editing systems. Perfectly logical and based on fact.dhw: It is a fact that the system works wonderfully well except when it doesn’t. You started out by trying to explain the errors, and you have finished up by trying to ignore the errors. A particular problem is the “errors” that cause disease, which he tried to correct but in many cases couldn’t, although he actually designed the “errors” that cause ageing and death, because these are “required”. See below.
A full distortion of my presentation. I've pointed out that many editing systems that are marvelously accurate as required. Errors presented, not ever ignored.
DAVID: You now know about the problems errors in our living system create to raise the issue of how has the problem been solved. I'll repeat. I fully believe since most of us live long successful lives while most of our body parts are reproduced, it is obviously a very successful system God gave us, warts and all.dhw: As above. You started out with problems, switched from Darwinian evolution by chance “errors” to evolution by design because the “errors” became “slight variations”, and after your God had not bothered about disease-causing errors, had nevertheless provided backups to correct them, and then left the uncorrected ones for us to deal with, you finally decided we should ignore them altogether and only focus on your God’s successes.
Not ignored. As above you twist the presentation.
DAVID: As for your wonder about other mess-ups, I don't know of any others I ignored approaching over many years here. My God knew exactly what He was creating. Cellular garbage is handled beautifully by God's systems. Cells are factories in constant production and they have been given ways to get rid of unnecessary byproducts and broken machinery. All logical.dhw: Of course it’s logical. It’s also logical to propose that as evolution progressed, and the factories produced the rubbish, the intelligent directors of the factory responded by devising means of getting rid of the rubbish, as opposed to their “being given” those means. (Of course your God may have given the owners the intelligence to invent those means.) Why do you have to call the rubbish an “error”? Are you simply trying once more to distract attention from the earlier mess by focusing on your God’s successes?
Some of the garbage is misfolded molecules (errors).
DAVID: How species age. A view of the mechanism:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-insights-aging.htmlDAVID: This review shows us how God designed in a large portion of the aging mechanism. The last comment in the article indicates the role of wearing out.
dhw: Yes, one of the great incongruities in your "error" theory: your always-in-control-except-when-he-isn’t-in-control God deliberately designed the mechanisms for ageing and death, so they are not errors, but he could not possibly have designed the mechanisms for disease, which you may know as a retired doctor are errors that can cause death. Apparently these were not his fault, and he tried his best to correct them, but often failed and so left it to good folk like you to correct.
Your usual muddled approach. Because of errors God has editing systems in place
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: You have ignored the point that we do not know if another alternate biochemical living system constantly at work in production of product and reproduction is possible.
dhw: You told me I didn’t understand the biochemistry, and I pointed out that your God’s intentions have nothing to do with biochemistry. Now you switch to whether another system is possible. We don’t know. So how does that prove your God didn’t deliberately design this system, as opposed to having to look for ways of correcting unavoidable errors?
DAVID: You refuse to recognize we can only study the system God gave us. As a biochemist I cannot imagine a system in which the molecular changes are totally under control except in a very cumbersome setup that would run sluggishly.
We are not discussing what systems your God might and might not have come up with. My proposal is based firmly on the system we have, and with my theist hat on, I have proposed that the system we have may be precisely the system he wanted. He gave molecules the freedom to do their own thing. You have admitted this: they are free to disobey his instructions. And so the baddies do nasty things (we’re talking now about disease-making errors) and the goodies do nice things to try and correct them, and you don’t need to have your God faffing around trying and frequently failing to stop the baddies, and then saying “Ach, I’ll leave it to the humans.”
DAVID: He fully foresaw its problems and introduced magnificent editing systems. Perfectly logical and based on fact.
dhw: It is a fact that the system works wonderfully well except when it doesn’t. You started out by trying to explain the errors, and you have finished up by trying to ignore the errors. A particular problem is the “errors” that cause disease, which he tried to correct but in many cases couldn’t, although he actually designed the “errors” that cause ageing and death, because these are “required”. See below.
DAVID: A full distortion of my presentation. I've pointed out that many editing systems that are marvelously accurate as required. Errors presented, not ever ignored.
But you keep telling us to focus on the successes! You say the diseases only count as 0.000001% of the system, so we should look at how well it all works! Your presentation of the errors is as I have described before: first you said he didn’t care, then he provided backups, some of which didn’t work, and so he left it to humans to do what he couldn’t do. This presentation is as messy as that for evolutionary “errors”, which began by changing the course of evolution, making your God dependent on chance (and converting you to the Darwinian theory of random mutations), and finished up as insignificant “minor variations” that had no effect on evolution.
DAVID: Cellular garbage is handled beautifully by God's systems. Cells are factories in constant production and they have been given ways to get rid of unnecessary byproducts and broken machinery. All logical.
dhw: Of course it’s logical. It’s also logical to propose that as evolution progressed, and the factories produced the rubbish, the intelligent directors of the factory responded by devising means of getting rid of the rubbish, as opposed to their “being given” those means. (Of course your God may have given the owners the intelligence to invent those means.) Why do you have to call the rubbish an “error”? Are you simply trying once more to distract attention from the earlier mess by focusing on your God’s successes?
DAVID: Some of the garbage is misfolded molecules (errors).
Fine. What about the rest? Your whole errors theory is based on the assumption that whatever goes wrong is not your God’s fault, but look how well he has done in correcting the errors: evolutionary errors are insignificant, forget about diseases, and he invented a method of garbage disposal. And now we come to the next anomaly:
DAVID: How species age. A view of the mechanism:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-insights-aging.html
DAVID: This review shows us how God designed in a large portion of the aging mechanism. The last comment in the article indicates the role of wearing out.
dhw: Yes, one of the great incongruities in your "error" theory: your always-in-control-except-when-he-isn’t-in-control God deliberately designed the mechanisms for ageing and death, so they are not errors, but he could not possibly have designed the mechanisms for disease, which you may know as a retired doctor are errors that can cause death. Apparently these were not his fault, and he tried his best to correct them, but often failed and so left it to good folk like you to correct.
DAVID: Your usual muddled approach. Because of errors God has editing systems in place.
Your usual muddled approach. According to your theory, there are no editing systems in place for ageing and for death from old age, because those were designed, but there are editing systems in place for accidental but unavoidable disease-causing errors, which kill organisms of all ages, only the editing systems don’t work a lot of the time so we humans have to correct what your God couldn’t correct. This whole thread is a tangled mess and I do wish you would cut it and move on.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 09, 2020, 22:42 (1534 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: We are not discussing what systems your God might and might not have come up with. My proposal is based firmly on the system we have, and with my theist hat on, I have proposed that the system we have may be precisely the system he wanted. He gave molecules the freedom to do their own thing. You have admitted this: they are free to disobey his instructions....
Right, God the best system He could. Free to react molecules can work faster than molecules encumbered by precise hands on molecules. The freedom is required. Again you ignore the evidence God knew of the problems related, by the magnificent editing systems in place.
dhw: But you keep telling us to focus on the successes! You say the diseases only count as 0.000001% of the system, so we should look at how well it all works!
Of course look at how it works!! Your recitation of my initial ruminations is worthless, and therefor removed. I am content with my current presentation, which your confused comments helped clarify.
DAVID: Cellular garbage is handled beautifully by God's systems. Cells are factories in constant production and they have been given ways to get rid of unnecessary byproducts and broken machinery. All logical.dhw: Of course it’s logical. It’s also logical to propose that as evolution progressed, and the factories produced the rubbish, the intelligent directors of the factory responded by devising means of getting rid of the rubbish, as opposed to their “being given” those means. (Of course your God may have given the owners the intelligence to invent those means.) Why do you have to call the rubbish an “error”? Are you simply trying once more to distract attention from the earlier mess by focusing on your God’s successes?
DAVID: Some of the garbage is misfolded molecules (errors).
dhw: Fine. What about the rest? Your whole errors theory is based on the assumption that whatever goes wrong is not your God’s fault, but look how well he has done in correcting the errors: evolutionary errors are insignificant, forget about diseases, and he invented a method of garbage disposal. And now we come to the next anomaly:
DAVID: How species age. A view of the mechanism:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-insights-aging.htmlDAVID: This review shows us how God designed in a large portion of the aging mechanism. The last comment in the article indicates the role of wearing out.
dhw: Yes, one of the great incongruities in your "error" theory: your always-in-control-except-when-he-isn’t-in-control God deliberately designed the mechanisms for ageing and death, so they are not errors, but he could not possibly have designed the mechanisms for disease, which you may know as a retired doctor are errors that can cause death. Apparently these were not his fault, and he tried his best to correct them, but often failed and so left it to good folk like you to correct.
DAVID: Your usual muddled approach. Because of errors God has editing systems in place.
dhw: Your usual muddled approach. According to your theory, there are no editing systems in place for ageing and for death from old age, because those were designed,
Death is designed in, very logically. There has to be room for new generations as populations tend to multiple beyond reason when well adapted.
dhw: but there are editing systems in place for accidental but unavoidable disease-causing errors, which kill organisms of all ages, only the editing systems don’t work a lot of the time so we humans have to correct what your God couldn’t correct. This whole thread is a tangled mess and I do wish you would cut it and move on.
I won't stop. Biological errors are part of our form of life, and must be satisfactorily explained from the viewpoint of a creator God. The bold is a direct distortion of my presentation. Errors are rare. Why are you in good health at 83 and me at 91, if errors are common due to poor editing? The tangled mess is due to your bias. Short and simple review: in the high-speed biochemical process called life, in the process of evolution, God edits all genome advances into new species. During life most molecular errors are competently edited out which is why we have long lives, but we do have to try to correct what rare mistakes get through the editing process. If errors were common, life would be a mess. It isn't. Very simple explanations of how and why God produced what He did. You should be able to understand this summary paragraph.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: We are not discussing what systems your God might and might not have come up with. My proposal is based firmly on the system we have, and with my theist hat on, I have proposed that the system we have may be precisely the system he wanted. He gave molecules the freedom to do their own thing. You have admitted this: they are free to disobey his instructions....
DAVID: Right, God the best system He could. Free to react molecules can work faster than molecules encumbered by precise hands on molecules. The freedom is required. Again you ignore the evidence God knew of the problems related, by the magnificent editing systems in place.
The magnificent editing systems are not the problem! The problem arises when those magnificent editing systems fail to edit out the “errors” that cause untold suffering and death (disregarding the apparently specially designed mechanism for ageing and death from old age - see below). If your God gave molecules the freedom to disobey, others are free to obey, so why should he not also have given them the freedom to come up with counter measures to thwartthose nasty molecules that cause diseases? Maybe this freedom was not accidental, unavoidable and in need of correction at all. Maybe it was what God wanted. That is my alternative theistic explanation of what you call the "errors". It would be so much simpler to explain diseases as the outcome of God creating a system whereby cells (I prefer the larger unit) are free to govern themselves (as you believe he has done with us humans.) And maybe that freedom can also explain the whole history of life's ever changing bush throughout history.
dhw: ...you keep telling us to focus on the successes! You say the diseases only count as 0.000001% of the system, so we should look at how well it all works!
DAVID: Of course look at how it works!! Your recitation of my initial ruminations is worthless, and therefor removed. I am content with my current presentation, which your confused comments helped clarify.
Your initial ruminations on evolutionary “errors” underwent a 100% reversal and since your current view is that they are not worth bothering about, I’m happy for you to leave them out. I’m pleased to hear that my comments helped to clarify your confused presentation. Your confused ruminations on disease-causing “errors” remain at the top of the agenda:
dhw: ...one of the great incongruities in your "error" theory: your always-in-control-except-when-he-isn’t-in-control God deliberately designed the mechanisms for ageing and death, so they are not errors, but he could not possibly have designed the mechanisms for disease, which you may know as a retired doctor are errors that can cause death. Apparently these were not his fault, and he tried his best to correct them, but often failed and so left it to good folk like you to correct.
DAVID: Your usual muddled approach. Because of errors God has editing systems in place.
dhw: Your usual muddled approach. According to your theory, there are no editing systems in place for ageing and for death from old age, because those were designed...
DAVID: Death is designed in, very logically. There has to be room for new generations as populations tend to multiple beyond reason when well adapted.
We have agreed that death is necessary. The incongruity is what follows:
dhw: ...but there are editing systems in place for accidental but unavoidable disease-causing errors, which kill organisms of all ages, only the editing systems don’t work a lot of the time so we humans have to correct what your God couldn’t correct. This whole thread is a tangled mess and I do wish you would cut it and move on.
DAVID: I won't stop. Biological errors are part of our form of life, and must be satisfactorily explained from the viewpoint of a creator God.
My complaint is that your explanation is anything but satisfactory. For some reason you have brought evolution back into the discussion, so I’ll deal with that first:
DAVID: ...in the high-speed biochemical process called life, in the process of evolution, God edits all genome advances into new species.
So what “errors” are you talking about? Initially they were random mutations which your God could not prevent but could only allow. Now you’ve dropped them altogether. God simply dabbles with the genome. Let's get back to diseases:
DAVID: The bold is a direct distortion of my presentation. Errors are rare. Why are you in good health at 83 and me at 91, if errors are common due to poor editing? The tangled mess is due to your bias. Short and simple review: During life most molecular errors are competently edited out which is why we have long lives, but we do have to try to correct what rare mistakes get through the editing process. If errors were common, life would be a mess. It isn't. Very simple explanations of how and why God produced what He did. You should be able to understand this summary paragraph.
Narrowing the field to humans, you seem to have forgotten that vast numbers of people do not die of old age but die prematurely from diseases. As a doctor, you did your very best to correct the errors which your God’s “magnificent editing systems” had failed to correct. THESE are the errors that need to be satisfactorily explained. They are not explained by you and me celebrating our antiquity.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, September 10, 2020, 20:55 (1533 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Right, God created the best system He could. Free to react molecules can work faster than molecules encumbered by precise hands on molecules. The freedom is required. Again you ignore the evidence God knew of the problems related, by the magnificent editing systems in place.
dhw: The magnificent editing systems are not the problem! The problem arises when those magnificent editing systems fail to edit out the “errors” that cause untold suffering and death (disregarding the apparently specially designed mechanism for ageing and death from old age - see below).
Mountain out of mole hill, ignoring the point that most lives are long and errorless.
dhw: If your God gave molecules the freedom to disobey, others are free to obey, so why should he not also have given them the freedom to come up with counter measures to thwart those nasty molecules that cause diseases?
Have you forgotten The marvelous editing systems God provided? You like to denigrate them to make God look like He doesn't know what he is doing or is out of control.
dhw: Maybe this freedom was not accidental, unavoidable and [not] in need of correction at all. Maybe it was what God wanted.
Those 'free' molecules were exactly what God required to have a high-speed living system. I've explained. You've ignored or forgotten the point.
DAVID: The bold is a direct distortion of my presentation. Errors are rare. Why are you in good health at 83 and me at 91, if errors are common due to poor editing? The tangled mess is due to your bias. Short and simple review: During life most molecular errors are competently edited out which is why we have long lives, but we do have to try to correct what rare mistakes get through the editing process. If errors were common, life would be a mess. It isn't. Very simple explanations of how and why God produced what He did. You should be able to understand this summary paragraph.
dhw: Narrowing the field to humans, you seem to have forgotten that vast numbers of people do not die of old age but die prematurely from diseases. As a doctor, you did your very best to correct the errors which your God’s “magnificent editing systems” had failed to correct. THESE are the errors that need to be satisfactorily explained. They are not explained by you and me celebrating our antiquity.
Of course you have done what I expected, overemphasized the quantity of errors to emphasize how bad the errors are, and it makes God look bad. I brought the errors into this discussion to point out how carefully God studied the living system He created for us, which I believe is the only system He could create. He put in the editing systems to counteract the problem and I think He has done a magnificent job. I practiced for many years and I know the genome errors I ran into were few. I brought up the error problem because it had to be dealt with rationally, and I feel I've done that.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: God created the best system He could. Free to react molecules can work faster than molecules encumbered by precise hands on molecules. The freedom is required. Again you ignore the evidence God knew of the problems related, by the magnificent editing systems in place.
dhw: The magnificent editing systems are not the problem! The problem arises when those magnificent editing systems fail to edit out the “errors” that cause untold suffering and death (disregarding the apparently specially designed mechanism for ageing and death from old age - see below).
DAVID: Mountain out of mole hill, ignoring the point that most lives are long and errorless.
I really don’t know why you raised the subject of “errors” if all you want us to do is ignore the errors. Those that result in untold suffering and death are the problem, and I’m sure you didn’t tell your young patients who were dying of cancer that they were making a mountain out of a molehill and they should only think about all the folk who were living till their nineties and would eventually die of old age.
dhw: If your God gave molecules the freedom to disobey, others are free to obey, so why should he not also have given them the freedom to come up with counter measures to thwart those nasty molecules that cause diseases?
DAVID: Have you forgotten the marvelous editing systems God provided? You like to denigrate them to make God look like He doesn't know what he is doing or is out of control.
And later:
DAVID: Of course you have done what I expected, overemphasized the quantity of errors to emphasize how bad the errors are, and it makes God look bad. I brought the errors into this discussion to point out how carefully God studied the living system He created for us, which I believe is the only system He could create. He put in the editing systems to counteract the problem and I think He has done a magnificent job. I practiced for many years and I know the genome errors I ran into were few. I brought up the error problem because it had to be dealt with rationally, and I feel I've done that.
Same again. Your idea of a “rational” explanation is to tell us that the errors your God could NOT successfully “edit” are a mere molehill, and we should only think of all those lucky people who die of old age. And it is you who have denigrated your God by telling us that he could not control the errors produced by the system he designed. You then changed your tune and tried to switch the subject to how well he has controlled them. Have you forgotten your own statement that he did the best he could, but some of his backups didn’t work and so he left it to us humans to correct what he couldn’t correct?
dhw: Maybe this freedom was not accidental, unavoidable and in need of correction at all. Maybe it was what God wanted.
DAVID: Those 'free' molecules were exactly what God required to have a high-speed living system. I've explained. You've ignored or forgotten the point.
I have not forgotten it – I have used it to propose a theory different from yours. Instead of him designing a living system in which free molecules accidentally produced errors which he could not prevent, I suggest that he designed the system because he wanted the molecules to have the freedom to produce what you call the “errors”. And I have expanded this proposal (theistic version) not only to his giving molecules the freedom to be nice or nasty, but also to his giving cells the freedom in general to work out their own ways of improving their chances of survival, which would explain the vast variety of life forms, diseases, cures, failure to cure etc. without any talk of “errors" or your God’s inability to prevent them and to provide effective backups against some of the nasty ones etc. It would simply mean that he designed precisely what he wanted to design.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, September 11, 2020, 22:04 (1532 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Mountain out of mole hill, ignoring the point that most lives are long and errorless.
dhw: I really don’t know why you raised the subject of “errors” if all you want us to do is ignore the errors. Those that result in untold suffering and death are the problem, and I’m sure you didn’t tell your young patients who were dying of cancer that they were making a mountain out of a molehill and they should only think about all the folk who were living till their nineties and would eventually die of old age.
I have inadvertently exposed your underlying bias. I remember your championship of catastrophe theories. You tend to always emphasize the dark side of reality. Errors are rare when the whole picture is analyzed. Note today's comment on DNA translation and error controls and your bleak outlook below:
dhw: Your idea of a “rational” explanation is to tell us that the errors your God could NOT successfully “edit” are a mere molehill, and we should only think of all those lucky people who die of old age. And it is you who have denigrated your God by telling us that he could not control the errors produced by the system he designed. You then changed your tune and tried to switch the subject to how well he has controlled them. Have you forgotten your own statement that he did the best he could, but some of his backups didn’t work and so he left it to us humans to correct what he couldn’t correct?
You interpreted my comments as denigration, showing your biased view. Thank you for this wonderful example of a bleak outlook on the marvelous miracle of life as designed by God. And as for our role, we are amazingly designed to step in for God!!! I don't need to repeat my approach in today's new entry on translation, etc.
dhw: Maybe this freedom was not accidental, unavoidable and in need of correction at all. Maybe it was what God wanted.
DAVID: Those 'free' molecules were exactly what God required to have a high-speed living system. I've explained. You've ignored or forgotten the point.
dhw: I have not forgotten it – I have used it to propose a theory different from yours. Instead of him designing a living system in which free molecules accidentally produced errors which he could not prevent, I suggest that he designed the system because he wanted the molecules to have the freedom to produce what you call the “errors”. And I have expanded this proposal (theistic version) not only to his giving molecules the freedom to be nice or nasty, but also to his giving cells the freedom in general to work out their own ways of improving their chances of survival, which would explain the vast variety of life forms, diseases, cures, failure to cure etc. without any talk of “errors" or your God’s inability to prevent them and to provide effective backups against some of the nasty ones etc. It would simply mean that he designed precisely what he wanted to design.
Wonderful example of not understanding or appreciating the system God gave us in living organisms. It is a distorted version of how God handled things as I see Him, full of purpose and direction. You have Him letting things dash about in all directions. It is obvious to me it is required to have the molecules have freedom of action while under strict rules of engagement. In one way your are inadvertently correct. God designed exactly the system He wanted, because He knew it had to be designed the way it is now.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: Mountain out of mole hill, ignoring the point that most lives are long and errorless.
dhw: I really don’t know why you raised the subject of “errors” if all you want us to do is ignore the errors. Those that result in untold suffering and death are the problem, and I’m sure you didn’t tell your young patients who were dying of cancer that they were making a mountain out of a molehill and they should only think about all the folk who were living till their nineties and would eventually die of old age.
DAVID: I have inadvertently exposed your underlying bias. I remember your championship of catastrophe theories. You tend to always emphasize the dark side of reality. Errors are rare when the whole picture is analyzed. Note today's comment on DNA translation and error controls and your bleak outlook below:
Now you are really scraping the barrel. It is you who raised the problem of “errors”. You focused on evolutionary errors, and identified them as having changed the course of evolution, but then hurriedly changed your mind when you found that made you into a Darwinian, and so you minimized their importance. You focused on disease-causing errors, and twisted yourself in knots by saying God didn’t care about them and yet provided backups, though sometimes these didn’t work and he left it to us to correct what he couldn’t correct. All I have done is (a) try to unravel your tangled web of thought and (b) offer an alternative interpretation of the “errors”. We are completely united in our wonderment at the miracle of life and all the things that work.
DAVID: You interpreted my comments as denigration, showing your biased view.
You presented a God who designed a system containing errors he could not prevent, although he tried his best to correct them but, in the case of disease-causing errors, couldn’t do so. Yes, I see that as denigration. That is not “bias” – I simply find your “defence” unconvincing. But you may be right – perhaps he is helpless in certain cases. I don’t have a fixed view (=bias) and was merely commenting on your fixed view (= bias). My alternative, however, proposes a God who knows what he wants and designs it as he wants it, i.e. giving cells the freedom to be nice or nasty, and by extension to design their own ways of survival, thereby leading to the supercolossal variety of life forms and natural wonders that make up the history of our wonderful world. And no “errors” or futile attempts to control them. Just a theory, and it’s not “bleak”. It’s simply a different interpretation of your God’s capabilities and intentions.
DAVID: Wonderful example of not understanding or appreciating the system God gave us in living organisms. It is a distorted version of how God handled things as I see Him, full of purpose and direction.
It’s not a distortion of any kind. It’s DIFFERENT from the way you see things, but it is also full of purpose and direction – only it’s a different purpose and direction from those which you cling to and which lead you into the confusion I have summarized above.
DAVID: You have Him letting things dash about in all directions.
I have him calmly and deliberately inventing a system which results in cells “dashing about in all directions” (though hardly dashing, since the process covered billions of years) to create the huge variety of life forms and natural wonders that make up life’s history. It is you who have HIM dashing about in all directions, designing every single life form, lifestyle, natural wonder, giving courses in nest-building and operating on the brains of sleeping Moroccans.
DAVID (under “Genome complexity"): If this looks highly complex, it is. Only design can create this degree of controls resulting in accurate translation and transcription. Miraculous, yet we know mistakes can happen. It depends upon your viewpoint as to how to conceive of this. Paul Davies calls life a miracle in his book about life. But some wail over the mistakes in molecular function as though they are a huge disaster and present an impotent God. It all depends on the real recognition that life functions perfectly well almost all the time. I have presented the problem of errors to demonstrate a more complete picture of the problems attendant with this mechanism of life.
It is you who brought up the subject of disease-causing errors and set out to explain them, and yes, I would say they are a huge disaster, but that doesn’t mean I do not also wonder at the miracle of life. As above, your method of explaining them swung from your God not caring to your God providing backups which don’t always work and leaving it to humans to do the correcting, and finally to your estimate that they only constitute 0.000001% of the system so we shouldn’t think about them. I certainly wouldn’t describe your God as impotent, but if he created a system which produced errors he couldn’t control, though he really wanted to control them, I don’t see how you can avoid the conclusion that this entails a degree of incompetence. You say he couldn’t have done it otherwise. I say maybe he didn’t WANT to do it otherwise. Which of these theories is more respectful of your God’s powers?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, September 12, 2020, 18:47 (1531 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I have inadvertently exposed your underlying bias. I remember your championship of catastrophe theories. You tend to always emphasize the dark side of reality. Errors are rare when the whole picture is analyzed. Note today's comment on DNA translation and error controls and your bleak outlook below:
dhw: You focused on disease-causing errors, and twisted yourself in knots by saying God didn’t care about them and yet provided backups, though sometimes these didn’t work and he left it to us to correct what he couldn’t correct. All I have done is (a) try to unravel your tangled web of thought and (b) offer an alternative interpretation of the “errors”. We are completely united in our wonderment at the miracle of life and all the things that work.
Your history of my stream of consciousness ignores present thought, which is all that counts.
DAVID: You interpreted my comments as denigration, showing your biased view.dhw: ... My alternative, however, proposes a God who knows what he wants and designs it as he wants it, i.e. giving cells the freedom to be nice or nasty, and by extension to design their own ways of survival, thereby leading to the supercolossal variety of life forms and natural wonders that make up the history of our wonderful world. And no “errors” or futile attempts to control them. Just a theory, and it’s not “bleak”. It’s simply a different interpretation of your God’s capabilities and intentions.
Yes it is, your usual concept of God who is not in control and lets things fester on their own. My God is in total control of history
DAVID: Wonderful example of not understanding or appreciating the system God gave us in living organisms. It is a distorted version of how God handled things as I see Him, full of purpose and direction.dhw: It’s not a distortion of any kind. It’s DIFFERENT from the way you see things, but it is also full of purpose and direction – only it’s a different purpose and direction from those which you cling to and which lead you into the confusion I have summarized above.
DAVID: You have Him letting things dash about in all directions.
dhw: I have him calmly and deliberately inventing a system which results in cells “dashing about in all directions” (though hardly dashing, since the process covered billions of years) to create the huge variety of life forms and natural wonders that make up life’s history. It is you who have HIM dashing about in all directions, designing every single life form, lifestyle, natural wonder, giving courses in nest-building and operating on the brains of sleeping Moroccans. >
DAVID (under “Genome complexity"): If this looks highly complex, it is. Only design can create this degree of controls resulting in accurate translation and transcription. Miraculous, yet we know mistakes can happen. It depends upon your viewpoint as to how to conceive of this. Paul Davies calls life a miracle in his book about life. But some wail over the mistakes in molecular function as though they are a huge disaster and present an impotent God. It all depends on the real recognition that life functions perfectly well almost all the time. I have presented the problem of errors to demonstrate a more complete picture of the problems attendant with this mechanism of life.
dhw: It is you who brought up the subject of disease-causing errors and set out to explain them, and yes, I would say they are a huge disaster, but that doesn’t mean I do not also wonder at the miracle of life. As above, your method of explaining them swung from your God not caring to your God providing backups which don’t always work and leaving it to humans to do the correcting, and finally to your estimate that they only constitute 0.000001% of the system so we shouldn’t think about them. I certainly wouldn’t describe your God as impotent, but if he created a system which produced errors he couldn’t control, though he really wanted to control them, I don’t see how you can avoid the conclusion that this entails a degree of incompetence. You say he couldn’t have done it otherwise. I say maybe he didn’t WANT to do it otherwise. Which of these theories is more respectful of your God’s powers?
It is not a matter of respect. The bold fits my analysis of the biochemistry of life. From yesterdays entry: "I think a more complex system of molecular controls using more chaperoning molecules would have been too cumbersome resulting in reactions that were too slow for the high speed results required in life." That concept is crucial to my conclusions. Your reaction is the same as I brought out earlier. You see the bad side as the colored sentence indicates. I see the good side of what God created. Reviewing my stream of consciousness is beside the point of current discussion. Try sticking to where we are now. This problem of errors had to be covered for completeness. Why did you say I proposed "we shouldn't think about them". That was never my intent in bringing up the entire subject, which has you still in total confusion and bias about God's abilities.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: I have inadvertently exposed your underlying bias. I remember your championship of catastrophe theories. You tend to always emphasize the dark side of reality. Errors are rare when the whole picture is analyzed. Note today's comment on DNA translation and error controls and your bleak outlook below:
dhw: You focused on disease-causing errors, and twisted yourself in knots by saying God didn’t care about them and yet provided backups, though sometimes these didn’t work and he left it to us to correct what he couldn’t correct. All I have done is (a) try to unravel your tangled web of thought and (b) offer an alternative interpretation of the “errors”. We are completely united in our wonderment at the miracle of life and all the things that work.
DAVID: Your history of my stream of consciousness ignores present thought, which is all that counts.
By tomorrow the present will be the past. Your present explanation for your God’s failure to provide successful backups to correct disease-causing errors is that I shouldn’t look on the bleak side but should consider the successes. I hope that by tomorrow you will have realized that this is not a very satisfactory explanation.
dhw: ... My alternative, however, proposes a God who knows what he wants and designs it as he wants it, i.e. giving cells the freedom to be nice or nasty, and by extension to design their own ways of survival, thereby leading to the supercolossal variety of life forms and natural wonders that make up the history of our wonderful world. And no “errors” or futile attempts to control them. Just a theory, and it’s not “bleak”. It’s simply a different interpretation of your God’s capabilities and intentions.
DAVID: Yes it is, your usual concept of God who is not in control and lets things fester on their own. My God is in total control of history.
"Not in contro"l and letting things "fester" is YOUR concept! You tell us he couldn’t prevent the disease-causing errors, provided wonderful backups etc,, but left it to us to correct the “errors” he couldn’t correct. And a God who can’t prevent errors, and WANTS to correct them but can’t, is NOT in total control. That was why you even boasted that you were the one “willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” This is not past “stream of consciousness”. He still can’t stop them and he still can’t correct them, and he still leaves them to us to correct. Only now you have him in total control, so long as we ignore the mere 0.000001% of errors (e.g. cancer) he couldn’t correct. It's not the successes you need to explain! It's the failures!
dhw: I certainly wouldn’t describe your God as impotent, but if he created a system which produced errors he couldn’t control, though he really wanted to control them, I don’t see how you can avoid the conclusion that this entails a degree of incompetence. You say he couldn’t have done it otherwise. I say maybe he didn’t WANT to do it otherwise. Which of these theories is more respectful of your God’s powers?
DAVID: It is not a matter of respect.
You accused me of denigrating your God. Your version has him wanting, trying, and failing to control certain“errors”. Wanting, trying and failing = incompetence. But if he INTENDED to design what you call the “errors”, there is no incompetence. Which of these theories is more denigrating to God?
DAVID: The bold fits my analysis of the biochemistry of life. From yesterdays entry: "I think a more complex system of molecular controls using more chaperoning molecules would have been too cumbersome resulting in reactions that were too slow for the high speed results required in life."
Very impressive, but nothing to do with your interpretation of your God’s intentions and subsequent actions! Once more: you say he didn’t WANT the “errors” and tried to correct them. I suggest he wanted the molecules to have their freedom – not as “errors” but as the very foundations of evolution, producing the huge variety of life forms (including nasty ones) that make up life’s history.
DAVID: Your reaction is the same as I brought out earlier. You see the bad side as the colored sentence indicates. I see the good side of what God created. Reviewing my stream of consciousness is beside the point of current discussion. Try sticking to where we are now. This problem of errors had to be covered for completeness. Why did you say I proposed "we shouldn't think about them". That was never my intent in bringing up the entire subject, which has you still in total confusion and bias about God's abilities.
Your stream of consciousness is highly relevant because your current explanation is as confused as your previous explanations. You have not covered the problem of error, and I don’t know why you brought up the subject in the first place, since all you want us to do is forget about evolutionary “errors”, which merely constitute “slight variations”, and forget about disease-causing errors, since they merely constitute 0.000001% of the system. Nor do I understand why you are so averse to the possibility that your God might have designed precisely the system he WANTED to design, as I have proposed above.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Sunday, September 13, 2020, 19:20 (1530 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your history of my stream of consciousness ignores present thought, which is all that counts.
dhw: By tomorrow the present will be the past. Your present explanation for your God’s failure to provide successful backups to correct disease-causing errors is that I shouldn’t look on the bleak side but should consider the successes. I hope that by tomorrow you will have realized that this is not a very satisfactory explanation.
The bleak outlook is yours, not mine. Your overwhelming bias is showing. I am extremely pleased with how God has handled the problem.
dhw: ... My alternative, however, proposes a God who knows what he wants and designs it as he wants it, i.e. giving cells the freedom to be nice or nasty, and by extension to design their own ways of survival, thereby leading to the supercolossal variety of life forms and natural wonders that make up the history of our wonderful world.DAVID: Yes it is, your usual concept of God who is not in control and lets things fester on their own. My God is in total control of history.
dhw: "Not in contro"l and letting things "fester" is YOUR concept! You tell us he couldn’t prevent the disease-causing errors, provided wonderful backups etc,, but left it to us to correct the “errors” he couldn’t correct. And a God who can’t prevent errors, and WANTS to correct them but can’t, is NOT in total control. That was why you even boasted that you were the one “willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can’t stop molecular errors in a system he created.” This is not past “stream of consciousness”. He still can’t stop them and he still can’t correct them, and he still leaves them to us to correct. Only now you have him in total control, so long as we ignore the mere 0.000001% of errors (e.g. cancer) he couldn’t correct. It's not the successes you need to explain! It's the failures!
Total biased view. God has done a miraculous job of editing. I'm very pleased with what He has done.
dhw: I certainly wouldn’t describe your God as impotent, but if he created a system which produced errors he couldn’t control, though he really wanted to control them, I don’t see how you can avoid the conclusion that this entails a degree of incompetence. You say he couldn’t have done it otherwise. I say maybe he didn’t WANT to do it otherwise. Which of these theories is more respectful of your God’s powers?DAVID: It is not a matter of respect.
dhw: You accused me of denigrating your God. Your version has him wanting, trying, and failing to control certain“errors”. Wanting, trying and failing = incompetence. But if he INTENDED to design what you call the “errors”, there is no incompetence. Which of these theories is more denigrating to God?
Not mine, but your distortion of mine. The failure the in editing is extremely minimal. 'Im very pleased with how God has handled this problem. You aren't it seems.
DAVID: The bold fits my analysis of the biochemistry of life. From yesterdays entry: "I think a more complex system of molecular controls using more chaperoning molecules would have been too cumbersome resulting in reactions that were too slow for the high speed results required in life."dhw: Very impressive, but nothing to do with your interpretation of your God’s intentions and subsequent actions! Once more: you say he didn’t WANT the “errors” and tried to correct them. I suggest he wanted the molecules to have their freedom – not as “errors” but as the very foundations of evolution, producing the huge variety of life forms (including nasty ones) that make up life’s history.
A biased theory to have God give up some controls. Not my view of God.
DAVID: Your reaction is the same as I brought out earlier. You see the bad side as the colored sentence indicates. I see the good side of what God created. Reviewing my stream of consciousness is beside the point of current discussion. Try sticking to where we are now. This problem of errors had to be covered for completeness. Why did you say I proposed "we shouldn't think about them". That was never my intent in bringing up the entire subject, which has you still in total confusion and bias about God's abilities.dhw: Your stream of consciousness is highly relevant because your current explanation is as confused as your previous explanations. You have not covered the problem of error, and I don’t know why you brought up the subject in the first place, since all you want us to do is forget about evolutionary “errors”, which merely constitute “slight variations”, and forget about disease-causing errors, since they merely constitute 0.000001% of the system. Nor do I understand why you are so averse to the possibility that your God might have designed precisely the system he WANTED to design, as I have proposed above.
I have covered the problem of errors to my satisfaction. Editing works extremely well. As for the best living system available we have it as previously stated: "I think a more complex system of molecular controls using more chaperoning molecules would have been too cumbersome resulting in reactions that were too slow for the high speed results required in life."
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: Your history of my stream of consciousness ignores present thought, which is all that counts.
dhw: By tomorrow the present will be the past. Your present explanation for your God’s failure to provide successful backups to correct disease-causing errors is that I shouldn’t look on the bleak side but should consider the successes. I hope that by tomorrow you will have realized that this is not a very satisfactory explanation. [Hopes dashed! - dhw]
DAVID: The bleak outlook is yours, not mine. Your overwhelming bias is showing. I am extremely pleased with how God has handled the problem.
And:
The failure in editing is extremely minimal. I’m very pleased with how God has handled this problem. You aren't it seems.
You have drawn our attention to what you call “errors”, and have tried to explain them. You want us to forget the mess you made of evolutionary errors, because now they don’t count any more. And you drew our attention to disease-causing errors, but now you want us to forget the diseases and only think of all God’s successes. (I'm surprised that during a worldwide pandemic and at a time when cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, motor neurone disease etc. are rife, the problem of disease is described as "extremely minimal".) I even offer you an alternative view of what you call the “errors”, which removes the need for you to draw attention to your God’s inability to control the disease-causing errors, but this is dismissed. Your only response now, when I point out that you have NOT explained the errors you drew our attention to, is that my view is bleak and is:
DAVID: Total biased view. God has done a miraculous job of editing. I'm very pleased with what He has done.
What is this accusation of bias based on? I am as pleased as you about the successes, and I share your wonderment at the miracle of life, but that is not the subject you drew our attention to on this thread! Neither of us has a problem with everything that goes well. You felt the need to explain errors that led to evolution and errors that led to disease. I don’t know why you think I’m biased just because I drew attention to flaws in your initial reasoning (subsequently acknowledged) and then object when you try to change the subject from errors your God can’t prevent or control to all his successes.
dhw: Once more: you say he didn’t WANT the “errors” and tried to correct them. I suggest he wanted the molecules to have their freedom – not as “errors” but as the very foundations of evolution, producing the huge variety of life forms (including nasty ones) that make up life’s history.
DAVID: A biased theory to have God give up some controls. Not my view of God.
You stick rigidly to your fixed belief, and reject an alternative for no reason other than the fact that it is different from your fixed belief, and apparently this makes me biased!
DAVID: I have covered the problem of errors to my satisfaction. Editing works extremely well. As for the best living system available we have it as previously stated: "I think a more complex system of molecular controls using more chaperoning molecules would have been too cumbersome resulting in reactions that were too slow for the high speed results required in life."
I have understood that you don’t think any other system is possible, i.e. that your God had no choice, could not prevent the errors, but did his best to control them, and was very successful most of the time. But as above, you do not solve the problem by telling me not to think about it, and then accusing me of bleakness and bias because I want to stick to the subject you have – perhaps inadvertently – raised.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, September 14, 2020, 19:15 (1529 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The bleak outlook is yours, not mine. Your overwhelming bias is showing. I am extremely pleased with how God has handled the problem.
And:
The failure in editing is extremely minimal. I’m very pleased with how God has handled this problem. You aren't it seems.dhw: You have drawn our attention to what you call “errors”, and have tried to explain them. You want us to forget the mess you made of evolutionary errors, because now they don’t count any more. And you drew our attention to disease-causing errors, but now you want us to forget the diseases and only think of all God’s successes. (I'm surprised that during a worldwide pandemic and at a time when cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, motor neurone disease etc. are rife, the problem of disease is described as "extremely minimal".) I even offer you an alternative view of what you call the “errors”, which removes the need for you to draw attention to your God’s inability to control the disease-causing errors, but this is dismissed. Your only response now, when I point out that you have NOT explained the errors you drew our attention to, is that my view is bleak and is:
DAVID: Total biased view. God has done a miraculous job of editing. I'm very pleased with what He has done.
dhw:n What is this accusation of bias based on? I am as pleased as you about the successes, and I share your wonderment at the miracle of life, but that is not the subject you drew our attention to on this thread! Neither of us has a problem with everything that goes well. You felt the need to explain errors that led to evolution and errors that led to disease. I don’t know why you think I’m biased just because I drew attention to flaws in your initial reasoning (subsequently acknowledged) and then object when you try to change the subject from errors your God can’t prevent or control to all his successes.
Reviewing the history of this discussion shows its evolution. The issue had to be presented to put errors into context. You look at the gloomy side, and I don't.
dhw: Once more: you say he didn’t WANT the “errors” and tried to correct them. I suggest he wanted the molecules to have their freedom – not as “errors” but as the very foundations of evolution, producing the huge variety of life forms (including nasty ones) that make up life’s history.DAVID: A biased theory to have God give up some controls. Not my view of God.
dhw: You stick rigidly to your fixed belief, and reject an alternative for no reason other than the fact that it is different from your fixed belief, and apparently this makes me biased!
DAVID: I have covered the problem of errors to my satisfaction. Editing works extremely well. As for the best living system available we have it as previously stated: "I think a more complex system of molecular controls using more chaperoning molecules would have been too cumbersome resulting in reactions that were too slow for the high speed results required in life."
dhw: I have understood that you don’t think any other system is possible, i.e. that your God had no choice, could not prevent the errors, but did his best to control them, and was very successful most of the time. But as above, you do not solve the problem by telling me not to think about it, and then accusing me of bleakness and bias because I want to stick to the subject you have – perhaps inadvertently – raised.
I purposely brought it up which reveals only your dour view. I think it is the best system God could have designed. Your bolded sentence (I'm surprised that during a worldwide pandemic and at a time when cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, motor neurone disease etc. are rife, the problem of disease is described as "extremely minimal".) Sounds like medical school pathology students thinking, with all the illnesses and conditions will I live a long life? I was one of those students with that thought and I have lived a very long time. The danger is actually minimal for the vast majority of us. Except in your clouded pessimistic view and interpretation.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: The bleak outlook is yours, not mine. Your overwhelming bias is showing. I am extremely pleased with how God has handled the problem.
And:
The failure in editing is extremely minimal. I’m very pleased with how God has handled this problem. You aren't it seems.
dhw: You have drawn our attention to what you call “errors”, and have tried to explain them. You want us to forget the mess you made of evolutionary errors, because now they don’t count any more. And you drew our attention to disease-causing errors, but now you want us to forget the diseases and only think of all God’s successes […]
DAVID: Reviewing the history of this discussion shows its evolution. The issue had to be presented to put errors into context. You look at the gloomy side, and I don't.
If the errors are minimal, and you don’t want to discuss them, I wonder why you brought up the subject in the first place.
DAVID: I purposely brought it up which reveals only your dour view. I think it is the best system God could have designed. Your bolded sentence (I'm surprised that during a worldwide pandemic and at a time when cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, motor neurone disease etc. are rife, the problem of disease is described as "extremely minimal".) Sounds like medical school pathology students thinking, with all the illnesses and conditions will I live a long life? I was one of those students with that thought and I have lived a very long time. The danger is actually minimal for the vast majority of us. Except in your clouded pessimistic view and interpretation.
So you started this thread in order to tell us that errors don’t matter and we should only consider the successes. We should forget about evolutionary errors because your stream of consciousness made a mess of those. I am gloomy and bleak because I’m not satisfied with your refusal to go on discussing the errors your God can’t control. And I’m biased because I offer a theory which is different from yours. As regards disease-causing errors, anyone suffering from any of the above diseases should bear in mind that they are in a vast minority, and their view of their condition is clouded and pessimistic because you and the vast majority of people have lived for a very long time, you are extremely pleased, and although God was aware of the disease-causing errors in the system he had designed, the errors weren’t his fault, he’d done the best he could to correct them, and he'd left it to humans to correct those he couldn't correct, but apart from that he is still all-powerful.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 15, 2020, 15:27 (1528 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: If the errors are minimal, and you don’t want to discuss them, I wonder why you brought up the subject in the first place.
DAVID: I purposely brought it up which reveals only your dour view. I think it is the best system God could have designed. Your bolded sentence (I'm surprised that during a worldwide pandemic and at a time when cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, motor neurone disease etc. are rife, the problem of disease is described as "extremely minimal".) Sounds like medical school pathology students thinking, with all the illnesses and conditions will I live a long life? I was one of those students with that thought and I have lived a very long time. The danger is actually minimal for the vast majority of us. Except in your clouded pessimistic view and interpretation.
dhw: So you started this thread in order to tell us that errors don’t matter and we should only consider the successes. We should forget about evolutionary errors because your stream of consciousness made a mess of those. I am gloomy and bleak because I’m not satisfied with your refusal to go on discussing the errors your God can’t control. And I’m biased because I offer a theory which is different from yours. As regards disease-causing errors, anyone suffering from any of the above diseases should bear in mind that they are in a vast minority, and their view of their condition is clouded and pessimistic because you and the vast majority of people have lived for a very long time, you are extremely pleased, and although God was aware of the disease-causing errors in the system he had designed, the errors weren’t his fault, he’d done the best he could to correct them, and he'd left it to humans to correct those he couldn't correct, but apart from that he is still all-powerful.
The same old dour view. And you've expressed how amazed you are at God's works in the past.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: If the errors are minimal, and you don’t want to discuss them, I wonder why you brought up the subject in the first place.
DAVID: I purposely brought it up which reveals only your dour view. I think it is the best system God could have designed. Your bolded sentence (I'm surprised that during a worldwide pandemic and at a time when cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, motor neurone disease etc. are rife, the problem of disease is described as "extremely minimal".) Sounds like medical school pathology students thinking, with all the illnesses and conditions will I live a long life? I was one of those students with that thought and I have lived a very long time. The danger is actually minimal for the vast majority of us. Except in your clouded pessimistic view and interpretation.
dhw: So you started this thread in order to tell us that errors don’t matter and we should only consider the successes. We should forget about evolutionary errors because your stream of consciousness made a mess of those. I am gloomy and bleak because I’m not satisfied with your refusal to go on discussing the errors your God can’t control. And I’m biased because I offer a theory which is different from yours. As regards disease-causing errors, anyone suffering from any of the above diseases should bear in mind that they are in a vast minority, and their view of their condition is clouded and pessimistic because you and the vast majority of people have lived for a very long time, you are extremely pleased, and although God was aware of the disease-causing errors in the system he had designed, the errors weren’t his fault, he’d done the best he could to correct them, and he'd left it to humans to correct those he couldn't correct, but apart from that he is still all-powerful.
DAVID: The same old dour view. And you've expressed how amazed you are at God's works in the past.
The same old refusal to discuss the problem, to recognize the importance of the errors your God was apparently incapable of correcting, to consider any alternative to your interpretation, to regard any opposition to your own fixed belief as “bias”, and to pretend that someone who shares your wonderment at all the miracles of life is “dour” and “bleak” and “clouded” and “pessimistic” because he wants to discuss the subject which you raised (evolutionary and disease-causing errors) and which you made a complete hash of. Fortunately, I know you well enough to believe that you would never have told your young patients that their fatal disease was of “minimal” importance, and they should be grateful for the fact that you have lived to a ripe old age.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 16, 2020, 18:47 (1527 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: So you started this thread in order to tell us that errors don’t matter and we should only consider the successes. We should forget about evolutionary errors because your stream of consciousness made a mess of those. I am gloomy and bleak because I’m not satisfied with your refusal to go on discussing the errors your God can’t control. And I’m biased because I offer a theory which is different from yours. As regards disease-causing errors, anyone suffering from any of the above diseases should bear in mind that they are in a vast minority, and their view of their condition is clouded and pessimistic because you and the vast majority of people have lived for a very long time, you are extremely pleased, and although God was aware of the disease-causing errors in the system he had designed, the errors weren’t his fault, he’d done the best he could to correct them, and he'd left it to humans to correct those he couldn't correct, but apart from that he is still all-powerful.
DAVID: The same old dour view. And you've expressed how amazed you are at God's works in the past.
dhw: The same old refusal to discuss the problem, to recognize the importance of the errors your God was apparently incapable of correcting, to consider any alternative to your interpretation, to regard any opposition to your own fixed belief as “bias”, and to pretend that someone who shares your wonderment at all the miracles of life is “dour” and “bleak” and “clouded” and “pessimistic” because he wants to discuss the subject which you raised (evolutionary and disease-causing errors) and which you made a complete hash of. Fortunately, I know you well enough to believe that you would never have told your young patients that their fatal disease was of “minimal” importance, and they should be grateful for the fact that you have lived to a ripe old age.
I brought up the issue because it is very important to fit it into any concept of God and how He designed life. I knew from the beginning the errors are a most important subject. The point is God recognized the problem from the beginning and His editing mechanisms are remarkably accurate, if not perfect. Obviously all errors are bad as was my first approach in raising this issue. All you have done is concentrate on the 'bad' aspect of it. God invented life and that is all-powerful to me. Your not-powerful wishy-washy god wanted errors to help make more diversity!!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, September 17, 2020, 01:02 (1527 days ago) @ David Turell
The ID view of this subject:
https://evolutionnews.org/2020/09/in-cells-proofreading-and-repair-testify-to-intellige...
" As these new research papers show, the machines involved show exquisite craftsmanship and efficient action to keep other parts — machines outside their own structural needs — humming along.
"How can they do that? How do they know? Such things do not just appear by blind material processes. Proofreading and repair systems had to be operational from the beginning of life, because considering the lethal consequences without them, it’s hard to conceive of any primitive organism surviving, let alone progressing up an evolutionary ladder.
"Before cells divide, billions of DNA base pairs must be precisely duplicated. About one time in 10 million, a wrong base is inserted into the copy. Researchers at North Carolina State University found “genome guardians” that “stop and reel in DNA” during this important operation. Two enzymes cooperate to proofread the copy. They halt the duplication when a mismatch is found until more machines can fix the error.
"A pair of proteins known as MutS and MutL work together to initiate repair of these mismatches. MutS slides along the newly created side of the DNA strand after it’s replicated, proofreading it. When it finds a mismatch, it locks into place at the site of the error and recruits MutL to come and join it. MutL marks the newly formed DNA strand as defective and signals a different protein to gobble up the portion of the DNA containing the error. Then the nucleotide matching starts over, filling the gap again. The entire process reduces replication errors around a thousand-fold, serving as one of our body’s best defenses against genetic mutations that can lead to cancer.
"When cells divide, double-stranded breaks can occur. These are particularly dangerous, often associated with cancer. Medical researchers at University of Texas Health in San Antonio confirm that DNA repair requires multiple tools. Drs. Daley, Sung, and Burma at UT knew that the repair operation, called homologous recombination, is done by resection enzymes, but they were curious why so many different enzymes were involved. Why does the cell “need three or four different enzymes that seem to accomplish the same task in repairing double-strand breaks”? The “perceived redundancy,” they concluded, “is really a very naïve notion.” Like a skilled workman, the cell maintains “An array of tools, each one finely tuned.”
"Another type of error can occur when a gene is being transcribed. If RNA polymerase (RNAP, the transcribing machine) hits a lesion caused by UV radiation or some other mutagen, the transcription can stall. Thankfully, there is a programmed response called transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair (TC-NER) that knows what to do. That’s a good thing, because faulty repair can lead to “the severe neurological disorder Cockayne syndrome,”
***
"The cell has mechanisms for preventing errors, too. Research “has unraveled for the first time the three-dimensional structure and mechanism of a complex enzyme that protects cells from constant DNA damage,...
***
"DNA polymerase ζ is the crucial enzyme that allows cells to battle the more than 100,000 DNA-damaging events that occur daily from normal metabolic activities and environmental intrusions like ultraviolet light, ionizing radiation, and industrial carcinogens.
***
"Chemical lesions in the genetic material DNA can have catastrophic consequences for cells, and even for the organism concerned. This explains why the efficient identification and rapid repair of DNA damage is vital for survival. DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs), which are formed when proteins are adventitiously attached to DNA, are particularly harmful. DPCs are removed by the action of a dedicated enzyme — the protease SPRTN — which cleaves the bond between the protein and the DNA.
"DPCs can occur during natural metabolism or by contact with synthetic chemicals. SPRTN has a challenging job, they say, because it must be able to tackle a variety of situations; “the enzyme has to be able to identify many different structures as aberrant.” Its two domains must engage for it to recognize the error and fix it. Julian Stingele explains this fail-safe system:
"One binds to double-stranded, and the other to single-stranded DNA. “So the protein uses a modular system for substrate recognition. Only when both domains are engaged is the enzyme active — and DNA in which double-stranded and single-stranded regions occur in close proximity is often found in the vicinity of crosslinks,” says Stingele.
***
"Each system must first recognize the error and then know what to do; otherwise, the consequences can be catastrophic. In each case, the machinery is well designed and finely tuned to solve the problem, and it does so rapidly and efficiently. That takes foresight, and foresight implies intelligent design. As Marcos Eberlin says in his book Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, “This act of anticipation — foresight — is not a characteristic of blind material processes. It is an act of intelligence, of a mind.'”
Comment: In view of this repair complexity, the idea that God might have wanted the errors to add to diversity is laughable. He seriously didn't want them to the point of designing repair systems as complex as the living systems
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: The same old dour view. And you've expressed how amazed you are at God's works in the past.
dhw: The same old refusal to discuss the problem, to recognize the importance of the errors your God was apparently incapable of correcting, to consider any alternative to your interpretation, to regard any opposition to your own fixed belief as “bias”, and to pretend that someone who shares your wonderment at all the miracles of life is “dour” and “bleak” and “clouded” and “pessimistic” because he wants to discuss the subject which you raised (evolutionary and disease-causing errors) and which you made a complete hash of. Fortunately, I know you well enough to believe that you would never have told your young patients that their fatal disease was of “minimal” importance, and they should be grateful for the fact that you have lived to a ripe old age.
DAVID: I brought up the issue because it is very important to fit it into any concept of God and how He designed life. I knew from the beginning the errors are a most important subject. The point is God recognized the problem from the beginning and His editing mechanisms are remarkably accurate, if not perfect. Obviously all errors are bad as was my first approach in raising this issue. All you have done is concentrate on the 'bad' aspect of it. God invented life and that is all-powerful to me. Your not-powerful wishy-washy god wanted errors to help make more diversity!!
But we have diversity, and diversity comes from changes to existing mechanisms! That is why initially you tied yourself in knots by equating what you call “errors” with random mutations that changed the course of evolution. I propose that if God exists, the system he designed, and which you yourself have said gives molecules (I prefer to broaden this to “cells”) the freedom NOT to stick to his instructions, may in fact have been designed in such a way that the cells had the freedom either to stick to instructions (maintain the status quo) or to create new combinations (= the process of evolution)
.
Your second post:
“The entire process reduces replication errors around a thousand-fold, serving as one of our body’s best defenses against genetic mutations that can lead to cancer.”
Wonderful, except that cancer remains rife.
"Each system must first recognize the error and then know what to do; otherwise, the consequences can be catastrophic. In each case, the machinery is well designed and finely tuned to solve the problem, and it does so rapidly and efficiently. That takes foresight, and foresight implies intelligent design. As Marcos Eberlin says in his book Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, “This act of anticipation — foresight — is not a characteristic of blind material processes. It is an act of intelligence, of a mind.'”
DAVID: In view of this repair complexity, the idea that God might have wanted the errors to add to diversity is laughable. He seriously didn't want them to the point of designing repair systems as complex as the living systems.
I am not disputing that the complexity of the cell and the system offers a cogent argument for design. I am disputing your interpretation of what you call errors – and also the above interpretation of how the machinery works. The article states: “Proofreading and repair systems had to be operational from the beginning of life.” I do not believe for one second that the very first cells were subject to cancer, and so I would suggest that the system itself would have evolved continuously as new demands were made on it, i.e. it reacted autonomously to new requirements. The article asks an all-important question:
QUOTE: “the machines involved show exquisite craftsmanship and efficient action to keep other parts — machines outside their own structural needs — humming along.
"How can they do that? How do they know? Such things do not just appear by blind material processes.”
One answer could be that (theistic version) God gave them the intelligence to respond to requirements. But NB that does not mean their intelligence is sufficient to counter the intelligence of other intelligent cells or organisms that pose a threat. The freedom to diverge from a single pattern allows what we would regard as the goodies and the baddies. And so you have a complete explanation not only for evolution but also for what you have called the “errors” that cause disease. Why do you find it laughable that the realities of evolution, including diseases, defences against disease, and the great bush of life itself, might all be precisely what your God wanted and might all stem from the freedom which you agree he gave to the cells he designed?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Thursday, September 17, 2020, 18:45 (1526 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I brought up the issue because it is very important to fit it into any concept of God and how He designed life. I knew from the beginning the errors are a most important subject. The point is God recognized the problem from the beginning and His editing mechanisms are remarkably accurate, if not perfect. Obviously all errors are bad as was my first approach in raising this issue. All you have done is concentrate on the 'bad' aspect of it. God invented life and that is all-powerful to me. Your not-powerful wishy-washy god wanted errors to help make more diversity!!
dhw: But we have diversity, and diversity comes from changes to existing mechanisms! That is why initially you tied yourself in knots by equating what you call “errors” with random mutations that changed the course of evolution. I propose that if God exists, the system he designed, and which you yourself have said gives molecules (I prefer to broaden this to “cells”) the freedom NOT to stick to his instructions, may in fact have been designed in such a way that the cells had the freedom either to stick to instructions (maintain the status quo) or to create new combinations (= the process of evolution)
As usual a wishy-washy God who relinquishes control. Not my God.
dhw: Your second post:
“The entire process reduces replication errors around a thousand-fold, serving as one of our body’s best defenses against genetic mutations that can lead to cancer.”Wonderful, except that cancer remains rife.
Usual dour view of life. We are now curing much of cancer's attacks, unfortunately not all as yet. I see the doughnut, while you are gazing at the hole.
"Each system must first recognize the error and then know what to do; otherwise, the consequences can be catastrophic. In each case, the machinery is well designed and finely tuned to solve the problem, and it does so rapidly and efficiently. That takes foresight, and foresight implies intelligent design. As Marcos Eberlin says in his book Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, “This act of anticipation — foresight — is not a characteristic of blind material processes. It is an act of intelligence, of a mind.'”DAVID: In view of this repair complexity, the idea that God might have wanted the errors to add to diversity is laughable. He seriously didn't want them to the point of designing repair systems as complex as the living systems.
dhw: I am not disputing that the complexity of the cell and the system offers a cogent argument for design. I am disputing your interpretation of what you call errors – and also the above interpretation of how the machinery works. The article states: “Proofreading and repair systems had to be operational from the beginning of life.” I do not believe for one second that the very first cells were subject to cancer,
This comment shows your total lack of understanding of how living biochemistry creates life. Cells are always in high speed reproduction and that is always open to error. Bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. It must be assumed this reproductive rate was present at the beginning. Logically, God's editing system came with first life
dhw: and so I would suggest that the system itself would have evolved continuously as new demands were made on it, i.e. it reacted autonomously to new requirements. The article asks an all-important question:
QUOTE: “the machines involved show exquisite craftsmanship and efficient action to keep other parts — machines outside their own structural needs — humming along.
"How can they do that? How do they know? Such things do not just appear by blind material processes.”One answer could be that (theistic version) God gave them the intelligence to respond to requirements. But NB that does not mean their intelligence is sufficient to counter the intelligence of other intelligent cells or organisms that pose a threat. The freedom to diverge from a single pattern allows what we would regard as the goodies and the baddies. And so you have a complete explanation not only for evolution but also for what you have called the “errors” that cause disease. Why do you find it laughable that the realities of evolution, including diseases, defences against disease, and the great bush of life itself, might all be precisely what your God wanted and might all stem from the freedom which you agree he gave to the cells he designed?
The whole point of the article on major editing systems in the ID article show He didn't want the errors. Again you subvert the interpretation to reintroduce your wishy-washy, mamby -pamby God. Do you even realize the editing systems actually reduce the errors to a major extent!
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: I propose that if God exists, the system he designed, and which you yourself have said gives molecules (I prefer to broaden this to “cells”) the freedom NOT to stick to his instructions, may in fact have been designed in such a way that the cells had the freedom either to stick to instructions (maintain the status quo) or to create new combinations (= the process of evolution)
DAVID: As usual a wishy-washy God who relinquishes control. Not my God.
Am I right in assuming that you believe your God no longer intervenes and merely watches our world with interest? If so, he has relinquished control. Is that wishy-washy? Your own fixed ideas about him do not help us to understand how the history of life might reveal his intentions and methods (if he exists). Our only facts are what we know about that history. And so would you please tell us in what way my proposal fails to fit in with the historical facts we know.
QUOTE: “The entire process reduces replication errors around a thousand-fold, serving as one of our body’s best defenses against genetic mutations that can lead to cancer.”
dhw: Wonderful, except that cancer remains rife.
DAVID: Usual dour view of life. We are now curing much of cancer's attacks, unfortunately not all as yet. I see the doughnut, while you are gazing at the hole.
Great image, but I do not have a “dour view of life”. I am trying to find an explanation for those realities of life which, despite your career as a doctor, you would rather not think about. The “unfortunately” comment is part of your theory that despite all his wonderful successes, your (sometimes) all-powerful God was unable to correct these disease-causing errors and so left it to us clever humans to do what he couldn’t do. And yet puzzlingly you appear to have raised the subject of these uncontrollable errors in order to draw our attention to the errors he did control.
DAVID: In view of this repair complexity, the idea that God might have wanted the errors to add to diversity is laughable. He seriously didn't want them to the point of designing repair systems as complex as the living systems.
dhw: I am not disputing that the complexity of the cell and the system offers a cogent argument for design. I am disputing your interpretation of what you call errors – and also the above interpretation of how the machinery works. The article states: “Proofreading and repair systems had to be operational from the beginning of life.” I do not believe for one second that the very first cells were subject to cancer….
DAVID: This comment shows your total lack of understanding of how living biochemistry creates life. Cells are always in high speed reproduction and that is always open to error. Bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. It must be assumed this reproductive rate was present at the beginning. Logically, God's editing system came with first life.
By splitting my post, you have cut out its whole point. Yes, the system must have been there from the start, but now read my bolds!
dhw: …and so I would suggest that the system itself would have evolved continuously as new demands were made on it, i.e. it reacted autonomously to new requirements. The article asks an all-important question:
QUOTE: “the machines involved show exquisite craftsmanship and efficient action to keep other parts — machines outside their own structural needs — humming along.
"How can they do that? How do they know? Such things do not just appear by blind material processes.”
dhw: One answer could be that (theistic version) God gave them the intelligence to respond to requirements. But NB that does not mean their intelligence is sufficient to counter the intelligence of other intelligent cells or organisms that pose a threat. The freedom to diverge from a single pattern allows what we would regard as the goodies and the baddies. And so you have a complete explanation not only for evolution but also for what you have called the “errors” that cause disease. Why do you find it laughable that the realities of evolution, including diseases, defences against disease, and the great bush of life itself, might all be precisely what your God wanted and might all stem from the freedom which you agree he gave to the cells he designed?
DAVID: The whole point of the article on major editing systems in the ID article show He didn't want the errors. Again you subvert the interpretation to reintroduce your wishy-washy, mamby -pamby God. Do you even realize the editing systems actually reduce the errors to a major extent!
This is not an answer to the above, except for your extraordinary argument that my hypothetical all-powerful God, who deliberately created a system to produce the higgledy-piggledy world we know with its constant comings and goings and its vast variety (including all the goodies and the baddies), is wishy-washy and namby-pamby, whereas your hypothetical God, who accidentally produced errors, corrected some but couldn’t correct others, is…well…sort of 99% all-powerful and please forget the baddies.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Friday, September 18, 2020, 23:38 (1525 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: As usual a wishy-washy God who relinquishes control. Not my God.
dhw: Am I right in assuming that you believe your God no longer intervenes and merely watches our world with interest? If so, he has relinquished control. Is that wishy-washy? Your own fixed ideas about him do not help us to understand how the history of life might reveal his intentions and methods (if he exists). Our only facts are what we know about that history. And so would you please tell us in what way my proposal fails to fit in with the historical facts we know.
I don't know if God intervenes at this time, but what He has provided us attests to His extreme attention to purpose. From history I do not interpret God as you do.
QUOTE: “The entire process reduces replication errors around a thousand-fold, serving as one of our body’s best defenses against genetic mutations that can lead to cancer.”dhw: Wonderful, except that cancer remains rife.
DAVID: Usual dour view of life. We are now curing much of cancer's attacks, unfortunately not all as yet. I see the doughnut, while you are gazing at the hole.
dhw: Great image, but I do not have a “dour view of life”. I am trying to find an explanation for those realities of life which, despite your career as a doctor, you would rather not think about. The “unfortunately” comment is part of your theory that despite all his wonderful successes, your (sometimes) all-powerful God was unable to correct these disease-causing errors and so left it to us clever humans to do what he couldn’t do. And yet puzzlingly you appear to have raised the subject of these uncontrollable errors in order to draw our attention to the errors he did control.
This indicates your total confusion about why I brought up errors: For completeness of understanding of what God has achieved and how He has in the main controlled errors, He obviously reasonably anticipated.
DAVID: This comment shows your total lack of understanding of how living biochemistry creates life. Cells are always in high speed reproduction and that is always open to error. Bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. It must be assumed this reproductive rate was present at the beginning. Logically, God's editing system came with first life.
dhw: By splitting my post, you have cut out its whole point. Yes, the system must have been there from the start, but now read my bolds!
I have to split doubled up thoughts.
dhw: …and so I would suggest that the system itself would have evolved continuously as new demands were made on it, i.e. it reacted autonomously to new requirements. The article asks an all-important question:QUOTE: “the machines involved show exquisite craftsmanship and efficient action to keep other parts — machines outside their own structural needs — humming along.
"How can they do that? How do they know? Such things do not just appear by blind material processes.”dhw: One answer could be that (theistic version) God gave them the intelligence to respond to requirements. But NB that does not mean their intelligence is sufficient to counter the intelligence of other intelligent cells or organisms that pose a threat. The freedom to diverge from a single pattern allows what we would regard as the goodies and the baddies. And so you have a complete explanation not only for evolution but also for what you have called the “errors” that cause disease. Why do you find it laughable that the realities of evolution, including diseases, defences against disease, and the great bush of life itself, might all be precisely what your God wanted and might all stem from the freedom which you agree he gave to the cells he designed?
Once again a wish-washy God giving up total control of the works He is creating. you're back to chance advances a' la Darwin'
DAVID: The whole point of the article on major editing systems in the ID article show He didn't want the errors. Again you subvert the interpretation to reintroduce your wishy-washy, mamby -pamby God. Do you even realize the editing systems actually reduce the errors to a major extent!dhw: This is not an answer to the above, except for your extraordinary argument that my hypothetical all-powerful God, who deliberately created a system to produce the higgledy-piggledy world we know with its constant comings and goings and its vast variety (including all the goodies and the baddies), is wishy-washy and namby-pamby, whereas your hypothetical God, who accidentally produced errors, corrected some but couldn’t correct others, is…well…sort of 99% all-powerful and please forget the baddies.
Total incomprehension. God does not produce errors. His design of life does. And from my knowledge of biochemistry, I think it is the only system possible. But, I admit, it is the only system I know and understand.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: As usual a wishy-washy God who relinquishes control. Not my God.
dhw: Am I right in assuming that you believe your God no longer intervenes and merely watches our world with interest? If so, he has relinquished control. Is that wishy-washy?
DAVID: I don't know if God intervenes at this time, but what He has provided us attests to His extreme attention to purpose. From history I do not interpret God as you do.
I thought you believed that evolution was over but you were sure God was still watching with interest. Why would that be wishy-washy? I have always agreed that if God exists, he is purposeful, and I know only too well that you have a fixed view of that purpose allied to an illogical view of how he achieved it. Now please tell me why my proposal does not fit in with the history of life as we know it.
QUOTE: “The entire process reduces replication errors around a thousand-fold, serving as one of our body’s best defenses against genetic mutations that can lead to cancer.”
dhw: Wonderful, except that cancer remains rife.
DAVID: Usual dour view of life. We are now curing much of cancer's attacks, unfortunately not all as yet. I see the doughnut, while you are gazing at the hole.
dhw: Great image, but I do not have a “dour view of life”. I am trying to find an explanation for those realities of life which, despite your career as a doctor, you would rather not think about. The “unfortunately” comment is part of your theory that despite all his wonderful successes, your (sometimes) all-powerful God was unable to correct these disease-causing errors and so left it to us clever humans to do what he couldn’t do. And yet puzzlingly you appear to have raised the subject of these uncontrollable errors in order to draw our attention to the errors he did control.
DAVID: This indicates your total confusion about why I brought up errors: For completeness of understanding of what God has achieved and how He has in the main controlled errors, He obviously reasonably anticipated.
I am indeed confused. If your sole intention had been to praise God for all that he had achieved, why did you open the discussion by arguing that the errors were not his fault and were out of his control, and therefore he could only “allow” errors to change the course of evolution, and he did not care about errors that caused disease, although he did provide backups which didn’t always work? You want me to ignore all this now, but it was you who raised the subject and provided these explanations. Why did you bother if, as you now argue, evolutionary errors are “slight variations” and disease-causing errors are minimal? The latter is a cop-out. Diseases are rife. And broadening the debate, it wouldn’t surprise me if even some religious people weren’t wondering why your almost all-powerful God designed or allowed or gave freedom to bad viruses. I doubt if anyone would be comforted to know that these are only minimal compared to his successes. This is not a denial of all the wonders – they are not a problem that needs to be explained. You raised the problem of the non-successes, and now you want to wash your hands of it.
QUOTE: “the machines involved show exquisite craftsmanship and efficient action to keep other parts — machines outside their own structural needs — humming along.
"How can they do that? How do they know? Such things do not just appear by blind material processes.”
dhw: One answer could be that (theistic version) God gave them the intelligence to respond to requirements. But NB that does not mean their intelligence is sufficient to counter the intelligence of other intelligent cells or organisms that pose a threat. The freedom to diverge from a single pattern allows what we would regard as the goodies and the baddies. And so you have a complete explanation not only for evolution but also for what you have called the “errors” that cause disease. Why do you find it laughable that the realities of evolution, including diseases, defences against disease, and the great bush of life itself, might all be precisely what your God wanted and might all stem from the freedom which you agree he gave to the cells he designed?
DAVID: Once again a wish-washy God giving up total control of the works He is creating. you're back to chance advances a' la Darwin'.
You agree that your God might enjoy what he creates, and that the molecules were free to disobey his instructions, so why is it wishy-washy for him to have deliberately created a mechanism that constantly and freely produces all the wonders he enjoys? The advances are not by chance if they are produced by intelligent beings who know what they’re doing. Humans are the most obvious example – and you don’t find it wishy-washy that your God gave us free will, do you? Nothing to do with Darwin, and I don’t know why you think any mention of his name will invalidate any proposal different from yours. Now will you please at last tell me how my theory contradicts the history of life as we know it.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Saturday, September 19, 2020, 17:51 (1524 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: I don't know if God intervenes at this time, but what He has provided us attests to His extreme attention to purpose. From history I do not interpret God as you do.
dhw: I have always agreed that if God exists, he is purposeful, and I know only too well that you have a fixed view of that purpose allied to an illogical view of how he achieved it. Now please tell me why my proposal does not fit in with the history of life as we know it.
How God works is logical to me. But you fill Him with humanized reasons for His works. They fit history from a human viewpoint, which I do not think is God's.
DAVID: This indicates your total confusion about why I brought up errors: For completeness of understanding of what God has achieved and how He has in the main controlled errors, He obviously reasonably anticipated.
dhw: I am indeed confused. If your sole intention had been to praise God for all that he had achieved, why did you open the discussion by arguing that the errors were not his fault and were out of his control, and therefore he could only “allow” errors to change the course of evolution, and he did not care about errors that caused disease, although he did provide backups which didn’t always work? You want me to ignore all this now, but it was you who raised the subject and provided these explanations.
You are again repeating my stream of consciousness approach to the issue, at no real purpose in advancing the discussion. The whole issue occurred to me one day and I jumped in without full analysis of how to present it. I apologize for the haphazard handling of it. My analysis now is quite clear: God knew He had a problem, but this system of creating life is probably the best one available, but it is the only one we know to make judgements from.
dhw: This is not a denial of all the wonders – they are not a problem that needs to be explained. You raised the problem of the non-successes, and now you want to wash your hands of it.
I haven't washed my hands of it. I raised it because it had to be raised, not hidden. And I've presented a logical view of God's response, but because errors persist you have gotten bent out of shape, while I've not had my faith in God shaken. Explanation: depending upon molecules to do their thing without tight controls allows the high speed required. That is an obvious biochemical fact. That analysis satisfies any discomfort I might have had.
QUOTE: “the machines involved show exquisite craftsmanship and efficient action to keep other parts — machines outside their own structural needs — humming along.
"How can they do that? How do they know? Such things do not just appear by blind material processes.”dhw: One answer could be that (theistic version) God gave them the intelligence to respond to requirements. But NB that does not mean their intelligence is sufficient to counter the intelligence of other intelligent cells or organisms that pose a threat. The freedom to diverge from a single pattern allows what we would regard as the goodies and the baddies. And so you have a complete explanation not only for evolution but also for what you have called the “errors” that cause disease. Why do you find it laughable that the realities of evolution, including diseases, defences against disease, and the great bush of life itself, might all be precisely what your God wanted and might all stem from the freedom which you agree he gave to the cells he designed?
DAVID: Once again a wish-washy God giving up total control of the works He is creating. you're back to chance advances a' la Darwin'.
dhw: You agree that your God might enjoy what he creates, and that the molecules were free to disobey his instructions, so why is it wishy-washy for him to have deliberately created a mechanism that constantly and freely produces all the wonders he enjoys? The advances are not by chance if they are produced by intelligent beings who know what they’re doing. Humans are the most obvious example – and you don’t find it wishy-washy that your God gave us free will, do you? Nothing to do with Darwin, and I don’t know why you think any mention of his name will invalidate any proposal different from yours. Now will you please at last tell me how my theory contradicts the history of life as we know it.
It doesn't contradict history. It is your humanizing approach to God. God produces everything He wants, not enjoying the random errors that might appear to produce His wonders so He can enjoy them. Weird theology.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
Many apologies. I was interrupted yesterday but thought I'd posted this!
DAVID: I don't know if God intervenes at this time, but what He has provided us attests to His extreme attention to purpose. From history I do not interpret God as you do.
dhw: I have always agreed that if God exists, he is purposeful, and I know only too well that you have a fixed view of that purpose allied to an illogical view of how he achieved it. Now please tell me why my proposal does not fit in with the history of life as we know it.
DAVID: How God works is logical to me. But you fill Him with humanized reasons for His works. They fit history from a human viewpoint, which I do not think is God's.
So why do you think he wanted to correct the disease-causing errors? And what have you learned about your Gods viewpoint from the fact that he failed to do so and left it to humans to do what he couldn’t do?
dhw: […] If your sole intention had been to praise God for all that he had achieved, why did you open the discussion by arguing that the errors were not his fault and were out of his control, and therefore he could only “allow” errors to change the course of evolution, and he did not care about errors that caused disease, although he did provide backups which didn’t always work? You want me to ignore all this now, but it was you who raised the subject and provided these explanations.
DAVID: You are again repeating my stream of consciousness approach to the issue, at no real purpose in advancing the discussion. The whole issue occurred to me one day and I jumped in without full analysis of how to present it. I apologize for the haphazard handling of it. My analysis now is quite clear: God knew He had a problem, but this system of creating life is probably the best one available, but it is the only one we know to make judgements from.
We are not making judgements. Assuming that God exists, we’re trying to understand his intentions, methods and nature as manifested through the history of life. I appreciate your honesty regarding your initial attempts to solve the problem, but your “clear analysis” hasn’t solved it. Your “probably” means nothing more than that God probably couldn’t have done anything else, and your often repeated conclusion – not mentioned here – is that we should only think about the successes and not the failures. I can only repeat that the successes are NOT the problem!
dhw: This is not a denial of all the wonders – they are not a problem that needs to be explained. You raised the problem of the non-successes, and now you want to wash your hands of it.
DAVID: I haven't washed my hands of it. I raised it because it had to be raised, not hidden. And I've presented a logical view of God's response, but because errors persist you have gotten bent out of shape, while I've not had my faith in God shaken. Explanation: depending upon molecules to do their thing without tight controls allows the high speed required. That is an obvious biochemical fact. That analysis satisfies any discomfort I might have had.
I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?) and I’m not querying the biological facts. You knew these before you raised the subject, and for twelve years you have presented us with all the marvels of your God’s successes. So what caused your discomfort if it wasn’t the fact that some of the errors have NOT been corrected? In any case, your current comfort still doesn’t invalidate the alternative I have proposed, and which at last you have acknowledged fits in with the history of life as we know it.
DAVID: It doesn't contradict history. It is your humanizing approach to God. God produces everything He wants, not enjoying the random errors that might appear to produce His wonders so He can enjoy them. Weird theology.
I don’t understand this version of my proposal. You have accepted the possibility that your God enjoys his creations. My proposal is that the freedom you say he gave molecules to disobey his instructions was not an unavoidable consequence of the only system he could possibly design, but was the deliberately chosen foundation of the whole evolutionary process. He gave cells the freedom to maintain the status quo, or to go their own way in the quest to improve their chances of survival. You yourself have had him watching it all with interest and not intervening, and I simply put the process back to the start of evolution: invention of the process which he then watches with interest. (But I have always agreed that he could intervene if he wanted to, which might possibly explain extinctions.) Your mantra about “humanization” is irrelevant. Nobody knows his thoughts, but even you have agreed that he probably has thought patterns, emotions and other attributes similar to ours. This “theology” is certainly no weirder than one in which an all-powerful God designs a system which produces errors he can’t control, even though he wants to, and even tries to, but eventually leaves to humans to do what he couldn’t do.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Monday, September 21, 2020, 17:08 (1522 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: How God works is logical to me. But you fill Him with humanized reasons for His works. They fit history from a human viewpoint, which I do not think is God's.
dhw: So why do you think he wanted to correct the disease-causing errors? And what have you learned about your Gods viewpoint from the fact that he failed to do so and left it to humans to do what he couldn’t do?
God created us. He didn't wish us ill. Error correction is constant in every day cell splitting.
dhw: We are not making judgements. Assuming that God exists, we’re trying to understand his intentions, methods and nature as manifested through the history of life. I appreciate your honesty regarding your initial attempts to solve the problem, but your “clear analysis” hasn’t solved it. Your “probably” means nothing more than that God probably couldn’t have done anything else, and your often repeated conclusion – not mentioned here – is that we should only think about the successes and not the failures. I can only repeat that the successes are NOT the problem!
The failures are a problem, but you keep reversing the results, that editing blocks most.
dhw: I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?) and I’m not querying the biological facts. You knew these before you raised the subject, and for twelve years you have presented us with all the marvels of your God’s successes. So what caused your discomfort if it wasn’t the fact that some of the errors have NOT been corrected? In any case, your current comfort still doesn’t invalidate the alternative I have proposed, and which at last you have acknowledged fits in with the history of life as we know it.
I'll repeat, it is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to his creations, and therefore added editing mechanisms to protect as much as possible.
DAVID: It doesn't contradict history. It is your humanizing approach to God. God produces everything He wants, not enjoying the random errors that might appear to produce His wonders so He can enjoy them. Weird theology.dhw: I don’t understand this version of my proposal. You have accepted the possibility that your God enjoys his creations. My proposal is that the freedom you say he gave molecules to disobey his instructions was not an unavoidable consequence of the only system he could possibly design, but was the deliberately chosen foundation of the whole evolutionary process. He gave cells the freedom to maintain the status quo, or to go their own way in the quest to improve their chances of survival. You yourself have had him watching it all with interest and not intervening, and I simply put the process back to the start of evolution: invention of the process which he then watches with interest. (But I have always agreed that he could intervene if he wanted to, which might possibly explain extinctions.) Your mantra about “humanization” is irrelevant. Nobody knows his thoughts, but even you have agreed that he probably has thought patterns, emotions and other attributes similar to ours. This “theology” is certainly no weirder than one in which an all-powerful God designs a system which produces errors he can’t control, even though he wants to, and even tries to, but eventually leaves to humans to do what he couldn’t do.
My answer to the bold is still He gave us the best biochemical system of life He could, recognizing the problems of errors from the beginning. The reverse of your negative view. Recognizing errors God had to maintain a hands-on tight control of evolution.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: How God works is logical to me. But you fill Him with humanized reasons for His works. They fit history from a human viewpoint, which I do not think is God's.
dhw: So why do you think he wanted to correct the disease-causing errors? And what have you learned about your Gods viewpoint from the fact that he failed to do so and left it to humans to do what he couldn’t do?
DAVID: God created us. He didn't wish us ill. Error correction is constant in every day cell splitting.
And you don’t regard your God’s concern for our welfare as “humanizing”? Your objection to my theory now turns out to be that your humanized version of God is different from my humanized version of God.
dhw: We are not making judgements. Assuming that God exists, we’re trying to understand his intentions, methods and nature as manifested through the history of life. I appreciate your honesty regarding your initial attempts to solve the problem, but your “clear analysis” hasn’t solved it. Your “probably” means nothing more than that God probably couldn’t have done anything else, and your often repeated conclusion – not mentioned here – is that we should only think about the successes and not the failures. I can only repeat that the successes are NOT the problem!
DAVID: The failures are a problem, but you keep reversing the results, that editing blocks most.
That is not a reversal! You’ve hit the nail on the head: the failures are the problem. And so you don’t want to think about them.
dhw: I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?)…
I’d be interested to know the answer to this question.
dhw: …and I’m not querying the biological facts. You knew these before you raised the subject, and for twelve years you have presented us with all the marvels of your God’s successes. So what caused your discomfort if it wasn’t the fact that some of the errors have NOT been corrected? In any case, your current comfort still doesn’t invalidate the alternative I have proposed, and which at last you have acknowledged fits in with the history of life as we know it.
DAVID: I'll repeat, it is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to his creations, and therefore added editing mechanisms to protect as much as possible.
Yes, a lovely, comforting, humanized version of your God. But it doesn’t invalidate the fact that you yourself have him giving molecules/cells the freedom to do their own thing. And that opens the way to a free-for-all that produces the whole of evolution as well as the struggle for supremacy between the “goodies” and the “baddies”. You acknowledge that it fits in with the history of life on Earth. If you want to speculate on which human thought patterns, emotions and other attributes this might involve, that’s up to you, but you can hardly dismiss the theory on the grounds that it “humanizes” your God, since your own theory is based on your firm belief that God would not allow harm to his creations. Quite apart from error-prone cells and nasty bacteria and viruses, look what else he designed:
QUOTE: Australia’s funnel-web spiders are deadly to humans – particularly the males from the species Atrax robustus that calls Sydney home – but how they evolved to do this has been a mystery.
DAVID: How did the spider figure out it could produce a neurotoxin to stun predators and protect itself. This reeks of design, not chance evolution.
So he deliberately designed a spider whose poison is deadly to humans. He designed it before humans came on the scene, but according to you, everything he designed was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. And did he design the spider and the harmful bacteria and viruses without realizing they would be harmful to his creations? And how about carnivores – didn’t he realize that meat-eating would be harmful to some of his creatures?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 22, 2020, 18:33 (1521 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: God created us. He didn't wish us ill. Error correction is constant in every day cell splitting.
dhw: And you don’t regard your God’s concern for our welfare as “humanizing”? Your objection to my theory now turns out to be that your humanized version of God is different from my humanized version of God.
Of course. His human attributes INHO are God-like , His concern for us like our concern for others
dhw: We are not making judgements. Assuming that God exists, we’re trying to understand his intentions, methods and nature as manifested through the history of life. I appreciate your honesty regarding your initial attempts to solve the problem, but your “clear analysis” hasn’t solved it. Your “probably” means nothing more than that God probably couldn’t have done anything else, and your often repeated conclusion – not mentioned here – is that we should only think about the successes and not the failures. I can only repeat that the successes are NOT the problem!DAVID: The failures are a problem, but you keep reversing the results, that editing blocks most.
dhw: That is not a reversal! You’ve hit the nail on the head: the failures are the problem. And so you don’t want to think about them.
Hey! I brought up the issue. I am addressing them in a positive way while you quickly assume a negative approach and seized upon them to get God out of running evolution. Your negativity is inventive.
dhw: I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?)…I’d be interested to know the answer to this question.
My faith is stronger than ever.
DAVID: I'll repeat, it is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to his creations, and therefore added editing mechanisms to protect as much as possible.
dhw: Yes, a lovely, comforting, humanized version of your God. But it doesn’t invalidate the fact that you yourself have him giving molecules/cells the freedom to do their own thing. And that opens the way to a free-for-all that produces the whole of evolution as well as the struggle for supremacy between the “goodies” and the “baddies”. You acknowledge that it fits in with the history of life on Earth.
Your negative version of God as usual. Yes, the molecules are free to make mistakes as the best system to create life.
dhw: Quite apart from error-prone cells and nasty bacteria and viruses, look what else he designed:
QUOTE: Australia’s funnel-web spiders are deadly to humans – particularly the males from the species Atrax robustus that calls Sydney home – but how they evolved to do this has been a mystery.
DAVID: How did the spider figure out it could produce a neurotoxin to stun predators and protect itself. This reeks of design, not chance evolution.
dhw: So he deliberately designed a spider whose poison is deadly to humans. He designed it before humans came on the scene, but according to you, everything he designed was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. And did he design the spider and the harmful bacteria and viruses without realizing they would be harmful to his creations? And how about carnivores – didn’t he realize that meat-eating would be harmful to some of his creatures?
The spider is part of the Australian ecosystem, and Australians have a giant brain to learn how to avoid them. God knew everyone would eat everyone. All in the giant diverse bush.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
DAVID: God created us. He didn't wish us ill.
According to you, God created (directly designed) every other species as well (see later), so presumably he didn't wish them ill either.
dhw: And you don’t regard your God’s concern for our welfare as “humanizing”? Your objection to my theory now turns out to be that your humanized version of God is different from my humanized version of God.
DAVID: Of course. His human attributes INHO are God-like , His concern for us like our concern for others.
Why of course? Experimentation, new ideas, or enjoyment are out because they “humanize him”, but the human attribute of “concern” for others (sadly counteracted by another common human attribute, which is lack of concern for others) doesn’t “humanize” him, and so your theory must be right?
DAVID: The failures are a problem, but you keep reversing the results, that editing blocks most. (dhw's bold)
dhw: That is not a reversal! You’ve hit the nail on the head: the failures are the problem. And so you don’t want to think about them.
DAVID: Hey! I brought up the issue. I am addressing them in a positive way while you quickly assume a negative approach and seized upon them to get God out of running evolution. Your negativity is inventive.
You brought up the issue, and your “positive way” of dealing with the evolutionary errors, which originally you thought changed the course of evolution, is to say they were just slight variations, so they don’t matter. The failure to control disease-causing errors IS a problem, as you say above, and your solution is not to think about them. In the meantime, you have advanced the theory that your God unwillingly and unavoidably gave molecules/cells the freedom to disobey his instructions and to do their own thing (hence what you call the “errors”). So your God unwillingly lost control of them, whereas I propose that he didn’t want to control them in the first place. Why is it negative to argue that God got what he wanted, as opposed to him not wanting what he got and therefore trying in vain to correct it. You admit that the failures are a problem, so please stop pretending (a) that an attempt to explain a problem constitutes negative thinking, and (b) that the problem is solved by not thinking about it.
dhw: I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?)…
I’d be interested to know the answer to this question.
DAVID: My faith is stronger than ever.
That is not what I was asking. But you tell us ”it is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to his creations” and he has concern for us. I suspect this is the faith that makes you reject the possibility that your God might have any attributes you don’t like.
dhw: Yes, a lovely, comforting, humanized version of your God. But it doesn’t invalidate the fact that you yourself have him giving molecules/cells the freedom to do their own thing. And that opens the way to a free-for-all that produces the whole of evolution as well as the struggle for supremacy between the “goodies” and the “baddies”. You acknowledge that it fits in with the history of life on Earth.
DAVID: Your negative version of God as usual. Yes, the molecules are free to make mistakes as the best system to create life.
Molecules/cells must change if evolution is to happen. Evolutionary advances are not mistakes. Once again, you are confusing them with disease-causing errors, but both these and evolutionary changes are the result of molecules/cells being free. You say your God couldn’t prevent their freedom, and I propose that he intended it. Why is that negative?
DAVID: How did the spider figure out it could produce a neurotoxin to stun predators and protect itself. This reeks of design, not chance evolution.
dhw: So he deliberately designed a spider whose poison is deadly to humans. He designed it before humans came on the scene, but according to you, everything he designed was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. And did he design the spider and the harmful bacteria and viruses without realizing they would be harmful to his creations? And how about carnivores – didn’t he realize that meat-eating would be harmful to some of his creatures?
DAVID: The spider is part of the Australian ecosystem, and Australians have a giant brain to learn how to avoid them. God knew everyone would eat everyone. All in the giant diverse bush.
Yes, in your theory God specially designed nasty bacteria and nasty viruses and poisonous spiders and meat-eaters although it’s hard to imagine him purposely allowing harm to his creations. He simply designed them, knowing what they would do, but it’s OK because…you have faith that he’s concerned about us and doesn’t “wish us ill” (and presumably we’re the only creations that matter to him). How about another possibility? That a world in which everything was perfect, there were no threats, no baddies, no problems, would be pretty dull, and you need the dark in order to appreciate the light? That’s the world we’ve got, and if your God exists, maybe that’s the world he wanted. If he doesn’t want the world we’ve got, and if he’s all-powerful, why do you think he doesn’t step in and change it?
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
by David Turell , Wednesday, September 23, 2020, 20:29 (1520 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: You’ve hit the nail on the head: the failures are the problem. And so you don’t want to think about them.
DAVID: Hey! I brought up the issue. I am addressing them in a positive way while you quickly assume a negative approach and seized upon them to get God out of running evolution. Your negativity is inventive.
dhw: You brought up the issue, and your “positive way” of dealing with the evolutionary errors, which originally you thought changed the course of evolution, is to say they were just slight variations, so they don’t matter. The failure to control disease-causing errors IS a problem, as you say above, and your solution is not to think about them.
Distorted version of my thinking. I've discussed the very important editing systems.
dhw: In the meantime, you have advanced the theory that your God unwillingly and unavoidably gave molecules/cells the freedom to disobey his instructions and to do their own thing (hence what you call the “errors”). So your God unwillingly lost control of them, whereas I propose that he didn’t want to control them in the first place. Why is it negative to argue that God got what he wanted, as opposed to him not wanting what he got and therefore trying in vain to correct it. You admit that the failures are a problem, so please stop pretending (a) that an attempt to explain a problem constitutes negative thinking, and (b) that the problem is solved by not thinking about it.
The red thought is typical of how you always attempt to degrade what God does. I stated God designed exactly the system He needed to create life.
dhw: I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?)…
I’d be interested to know the answer to this question.DAVID: My faith is stronger than ever.
dhw: That is not what I was asking. But you tell us ”it is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to his creations” and he has concern for us. I suspect this is the faith that makes you reject the possibility that your God might have any attributes you don’t like.
My God and your God are two different personalities.
dhw: Molecules/cells must change if evolution is to happen. Evolutionary advances are not mistakes. Once again, you are confusing them with disease-causing errors, but both these and evolutionary changes are the result of molecules/cells being free. You say your God couldn’t prevent their freedom, and I propose that he intended it. Why is that negative?
Because your God loses total control over the course of evolution. Mine maintains control.
DAVID: How did the spider figure out it could produce a neurotoxin to stun predators and protect itself. This reeks of design, not chance evolution.dhw: So he deliberately designed a spider whose poison is deadly to humans. He designed it before humans came on the scene, but according to you, everything he designed was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. And did he design the spider and the harmful bacteria and viruses without realizing they would be harmful to his creations? And how about carnivores – didn’t he realize that meat-eating would be harmful to some of his creatures?
DAVID: The spider is part of the Australian ecosystem, and Australians have a giant brain to learn how to avoid them. God knew everyone would eat everyone. All in the giant diverse bush.
dhw: Yes, in your theory God specially designed nasty bacteria and nasty viruses and poisonous spiders and meat-eaters although it’s hard to imagine him purposely allowing harm to his creations. He simply designed them, knowing what they would do, but it’s OK because…you have faith that he’s concerned about us and doesn’t “wish us ill” (and presumably we’re the only creations that matter to him). How about another possibility? That a world in which everything was perfect, there were no threats, no baddies, no problems, would be pretty dull, and you need the dark in order to appreciate the light? That’s the world we’ve got, and if your God exists, maybe that’s the world he wanted. If he doesn’t want the world we’ve got, and if he’s all-powerful, why do you think he doesn’t step in and change it?
I've said in my first book God did not create a Garden of Eden for us, as dull. Just your point and I agree.
Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections
dhw: The failure to control disease-causing errors IS a problem, as you say above, and your solution is not to think about them.
DAVID: Distorted version of my thinking. I've discussed the very important editing systems.
You’ve discussed all the editorial successes, and don’t want to discuss the failures!
dhw: In the meantime, you have advanced the theory that your God unwillingly and unavoidably gave molecules/cells the freedom to disobey his instructions and to do their own thing (hence what you call the “errors”). So your God unwillingly lost control of them…
DAVID: The red thought is typical of how you always attempt to degrade what God does. I stated God designed exactly the system He needed to create life.
It is YOU who “degrade” him by insisting that he did not WANT what you call the errors, could not prevent them, and in the case of those that cause disease, did what he could to correct them but sometimes failed! And his failures are the subject of discussion here. I suggest that he designed the system he WANTED to design, including the so-called “errors”. Why is this “degrading”?
dhw: I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?)…
I’d be interested to know the answer to this question.
DAVID: My faith is stronger than ever.
dhw: That is not what I was asking. But you tell us ”it is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to his creations” and he has concern for us. I suspect this is the faith that makes you reject the possibility that your God might have any attributes you don’t like.
DAVID: My God and your God are two different personalities.
I have offered a variety of theistic explanations for the course of evolution, e.g. God experimenting, learning as he goes along, enjoying creation for its own sake, and you have dismissed all of them as “humanizing”. You see him as being concerned about us, not wishing us any harm, trying to protect us from the harm his designs (poisonous spiders, nasty bacteria and viruses) might cause us. How does your “humanized” view of his personality invalidate any of the “humanizing” interpretations I offer in my alternative theistic explanations of life’s history?
dhw: Molecules/cells must change if evolution is to happen. Evolutionary advances are not mistakes. Once again, you are confusing them with disease-causing errors, but both these and evolutionary changes are the result of molecules/cells being free. You say your God couldn’t prevent their freedom, and I propose that he intended it. Why is that negative?
DAVID: Because your God loses total control over the course of evolution. Mine maintains control.
He doesn’t “lose” control – that was YOUR theory at the beginning of this discussion. My theory is that he didn’t WANT control in the first place (though he can dabble if he wishes to). Your theory that he maintains control creates problems: if he wishes us no harm, why did he design all the harmful bacteria and viruses that cause us so much harm? If he didn’t design them, then he lost control or he never wanted control. As regards evolution, I don’t see how you can believe he gave molecules freedom to cause disease (negative) but not to fight disease, or to adapt to or exploit changing conditions (positive), which I propose are crucial factors in triggering speciation.
dhw: How about another possibility? That a world in which everything was perfect, there were no threats, no baddies, no problems, would be pretty dull, and you need the dark in order to appreciate the light? That’s the world we’ve got, and if your God exists, maybe that’s the world he wanted. If he doesn’t want the world we’ve got, and if he’s all-powerful, why do you think he doesn’t step in and change it?
DAVID: I've said in my first book God did not create a Garden of Eden for us, as dull. Just your point and I agree.
So do you agree that your God may have deliberately created the good and the bad in order to avoid “dullness”? In that case, why all this talk of “errors”? Why do you assume your God actually wanted perfection in the first place, could not avoid these “errors”, but tried hard to correct them? And why insist on every species and every natural wonder being directly designed, when a crucial factor to relieve dullness is unpredictability? Why give humans free will? If our free will alleviates dullness, why can’t the same motivation apply to evolution in general? There is no escaping the fact that this proposal would explain the ever changing, higgledy-piggledy history of life on Earth as we know it, as would my alternatives (God experimenting, learning, enjoying)...What we both agree on (after your initial confusion at the start of this discussion) is that errors in the system DID NOT cause evolution! You say the changes were directly designed by your God, and I propose that they resulted from the cellular intelligence which your God may have designed. So I suggest you drop the concept of evolutionary “errors” altogether and focus on the problem of disease.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
by David Turell , Thursday, September 24, 2020, 19:41 (1519 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Thursday, September 24, 2020, 20:18
dhw: He doesn’t “lose” control – that was YOUR theory at the beginning of this discussion. My theory is that he didn’t WANT control in the first place (though he can dabble if he wishes to). Your theory that he maintains control creates problems: if he wishes us no harm, why did he design all the harmful bacteria and viruses that cause us so much harm? If he didn’t design them, then he lost control or he never wanted control. As regards evolution, I don’t see how you can believe he gave molecules freedom to cause disease (negative) but not to fight disease, or to adapt to or exploit changing conditions (positive), which I propose are crucial factors in triggering speciation.
David: Once again I'll answer your confusion: we need viruses to advance evolution, proven in many entries; we need bacteria in helpful in microbiomes in our bodies, proven by many entries. My God works with direct purpose and provided us the best living system He could provide. God speciates, and species modify to changing environments.
Note this study about mice and Mother's microbiome affecting brain development in pups:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mother-mouse-gut-microbes-microbiome-pup-brain
The microbes residing in a female mouse’s gut help shape the wiring of her offspring’s brain, researchers report September 23 in Nature. While mouse and human development are worlds apart, the study hints at how a mother’s microbiome may have long-term consequences for her offspring.
***
The new results point to the influence of specific microbes and the small molecules they produce, called metabolites. “Metabolites from the microbiome of the mother can influence the developing brain of the fetus,” says Cathryn Nagler, an immunologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the study. The metabolites do this by reaching a developing pup’s brain where they affect the growth of axons, she says. Axons are the threadlike signal-transmitters of nerve cells.
***
Small molecules made by the gut bugs may account for this effect. The researchers found that levels of several metabolites in mom’s blood were linked to levels in the fetal blood and brain. “It’s kind of cool that it’s crossing different sites from the mom all the way to the fetus,” Vuong says. That suggests mom shares her gut metabolites with her young.
Comment: My point is we do not understand God's methods until enough research is done, and you keep guessing in negative ways about God.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
dhw: He doesn’t “lose” control – that was YOUR theory at the beginning of this discussion. My theory is that he didn’t WANT control in the first place (though he can dabble if he wishes to). Your theory that he maintains control creates problems: if he wishes us no harm, why did he design all the harmful bacteria and viruses that cause us so much harm? If he didn’t design them, then he lost control or he never wanted control. As regards evolution, I don’t see how you can believe he gave molecules freedom to cause disease (negative) but not to fight disease, or to adapt to or exploit changing conditions (positive), which I propose are crucial factors in triggering speciation.
DAVID: Once again I'll answer your confusion: we need viruses to advance evolution, proven in many entries; we need bacteria in helpful in microbiomes in our bodies, proven by many entries. My God works with direct purpose and provided us the best living system He could provide. God speciates, and species modify to changing environments.
I am not talking about good viruses and bacteria! They are not the problem! Why did he design the bad ones that cause all the trouble? If he didn’t design them and didn’t want them, then the system he created was such that he lost control. Yet again, your solution to the problem is to ignore it. I have never proposed a God who works without “direct purpose”. Species modify to changing environments, and unless you think your God preprogrammes the environments and the modifications, you will have to accept that the cell communities have the autonomous ability to change their structures accordingly. I am proposing that the same ability is also capable of innovation in response to changing conditions – and that sometimes it’s actually difficult to distinguish between adaptation and innovation. This idea, however, remains unproven – nobody knows the cause of speciation. Hence the different theories.
DAVID: Note this study about mice and Mother's microbiome affecting brain development in pups:
This does not answer any of the questions we are dealing with.
DAVID: My point is we do not understand God's methods until enough research is done, and you keep guessing in negative ways about God.
Of course I agree that we don’t know the cause of speciation, which means that if God exists, we don’t understand his methods. However, I really cannot see why you regard autonomous cellular intelligence as something negative, or why a God who cannot control the unwanted errors caused by his system is preferable to a God who designs precisely the system he wants, or why a God who wishes us no harm designs organisms hell-bent on doing us harm, or why you have not replied to the following exchange between us, after I’d suggested that he WANTED the mixture of good and bad:
DAVID: I’ve said in my first book God did not create a Garden of Eden for us, as dull. Just your point and I AGREE.
dhw: So do you agree that your God may have deliberately created the good and the bad in order to avoid “dullness”? In that case, why all this talk of “errors”?
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
by David Turell , Friday, September 25, 2020, 23:01 (1518 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Once again I'll answer your confusion: we need viruses to advance evolution, proven in many entries; we need bacteria in helpful in microbiomes in our bodies, proven by many entries. My God works with direct purpose and provided us the best living system He could provide. God speciates, and species modify to changing environments.
dhw; I am not talking about good viruses and bacteria! They are not the problem! Why did he design the bad ones that cause all the trouble? If he didn’t design them and didn’t want them, then the system he created was such that he lost control. Yet again, your solution to the problem is to ignore it. I have never proposed a God who works without “direct purpose”. Species modify to changing environments, and unless you think your God preprogrammes the environments and the modifications, you will have to accept that the cell communities have the autonomous ability to change their structures accordingly. I am proposing that the same ability is also capable of innovation in response to changing conditions – and that sometimes it’s actually difficult to distinguish between adaptation and innovation. This idea, however, remains unproven – nobody knows the cause of speciation. Hence the different theories.
This discussion is back to theodicy to which my answer is God knows what He is doing, even if some of it looks bad to us. I don't accept intelligent cells at all, on their own. They simply follow God's instruction. And God speciates
DAVID: Note this study about mice and Mother's microbiome affecting brain development in pups:dhw: This does not answer any of the questions we are dealing with.
It does tangentially. Bacteria do more good than bad, but you always seem to emphasize the bad.
DAVID: My point is we do not understand God's methods until enough research is done, and you keep guessing in negative ways about God.Of course I agree that we don’t know the cause of speciation, which means that if God exists, we don’t understand his methods. However, I really cannot see why you regard autonomous cellular intelligence as something negative, or why a God who cannot control the unwanted errors caused by his system is preferable to a God who designs precisely the system he wants, or why a God who wishes us no harm designs organisms hell-bent on doing us harm, or why you have not replied to the following exchange between us, after I’d suggested that he WANTED the mixture of good and bad:
DAVID: I’ve said in my first book God did not create a Garden of Eden for us, as dull. Just your point and I AGREE.
dhw: So do you agree that your God may have deliberately created the good and the bad in order to avoid “dullness”? In that case, why all this talk of “errors”?
The errors are part and parcel of the living biochemical system that keeps us alive. They had to be discussed And I had no idea, in advance, it would make you so uncomfortable. God's dealt with the problem, I presume to His satisfaction and I agree with what He has done as the correct system by carefully analyzing how it works and why it has to work the way it does. It seems your discomfort has lead to much negative theory about God and his desires and purposes.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
Transferred from “brain expansion”:
DAVID: God purposely set up the best system of living biochemistry He could. He ran a tight program of evolution, as noted in today's other entry that presents convergence again. God would trust intelligent cells that He created only if He gave them explicit guidelines for new advances. All presented before.
dhw: The “best system” entailed giving molecules the freedom to disobey his instructions, which means he is NOT in control! That is why, according to you, he did his best to correct the errors but sometimes failed. Convergence fits the pattern of intelligent cells responding in similar ways to similar problems. If God was unable to control disease-causing cells which disobeyed his instructions, why do you assume that evolutionary cells could do nothing but follow his instructions?
DAVID: Your 'best system' is not my considered biochemical thinking about the freedom of molecules. The molecules must be free in order for the high speed manufacturing and cell splitting can go on at the speed it must have in a liquid environment. They don't work on a solid assembly line but still work like 24-hour factories. Frankly, I wish you appreciated this. Your theorizing is skipping over all of the absolute requirements.
I appreciate that it all works wonderfully well, but unfortunately your response "is skipping over" the problem of "errors", which is the subject of this article. These, you keep telling us, are inevitable. You distinguished between two categories of “error”: evolutionary and disease-causing. After a lot of confusion, you decided that the evolutionary “errors” were of no significance. And you decided that we should not bother about the disease-causing errors and should only focus on all those parts of the system that worked perfectly. THAT is the subject of this discussion, together with the implications of the "freedom" your God could not avoid giving to the molecules.
dhw: I am not talking about good viruses and bacteria! They are not the problem! Why did he design the bad ones that cause all the trouble? If he didn’t design them and didn’t want them, then the system he created was such that he lost control. Yet again, your solution to the problem is to ignore it. I have never proposed a God who works without “direct purpose”. Species modify to changing environments, and unless you think your God preprogrammes the environments and the modifications, you will have to accept that the cell communities have the autonomous ability to change their structures accordingly. I am proposing that the same ability is also capable of innovation in response to changing conditions – and that sometimes it’s actually difficult to distinguish between adaptation and innovation. This idea, however, remains unproven – nobody knows the cause of speciation. Hence the different theories.
DAVID: This discussion is back to theodicy to which my answer is God knows what He is doing, even if some of it looks bad to us. I don't accept intelligent cells at all, on their own. They simply follow God's instruction. And God speciates.
I know you don’t accept intelligent cells. That is the reason for my now bolded sentence concerning adaptation. Either cells are "free" to adapt, or your God preprogrammed or dabbled every adaptation.Please comment. I agree that if God exists he knows what he is doing. Theodicy is only a problem if you believe that God is concerned about his creatures and wishes them no harm. It is no problem at all if you believe that his intention was to let life and evolution run free, and the mixture of good and bad was created intentionally. Hence our next exchange:
DAVID: I’ve said in my first book God did not create a Garden of Eden for us, as dull. Just your point and I AGREE.
dhw: So do you agree that your God may have deliberately created the good and the bad in order to avoid “dullness”? In that case, why all this talk of “errors”?
DAVID: The errors are part and parcel of the living biochemical system that keeps us alive. They had to be discussed.
And if what you call the “errors” were essential to God’s plan to create a mixture of good and bad, and not a dull “Garden of Eden”, we have resolved the issue: he had to give the molecules/cells their freedom if dullness was to be avoided.
DAVID: And I had no idea, in advance, it would make you so uncomfortable.
It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all. I find the above explanation perfectly understandable and acceptable.
DAVID: God's dealt with the problem, I presume to His satisfaction and I agree with what He has done as the correct system by carefully analyzing how it works and why it has to work the way it does. It seems your discomfort has lead to much negative theory about God and his desires and purposes.
But you have agreed with my point that you can’t have the good without the bad, as it would result in a dull “Garden of Eden”. There is nothing negative or positive in this. We are simply looking for explanations. But the discomfort is obviously yours, because elsewhere you have insisted that your God wouldn’t do anything to harm his creations, he cares for us etc. It is this “humanized” view of God which makes you so uncomfortable that you prefer to focus on all the successes and not even to discuss the disease-causing errors.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
by David Turell , Saturday, September 26, 2020, 20:21 (1517 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: Your 'best system' is not my considered biochemical thinking about the freedom of molecules. The molecules must be free in order for the high speed manufacturing and cell splitting can go on at the speed it must have in a liquid environment. They don't work on a solid assembly line but still work like 24-hour factories. Frankly, I wish you appreciated this. Your theorizing is skipping over all of the absolute requirements.
dhw: I appreciate that it all works wonderfully well, but unfortunately your response "is skipping over" the problem of "errors", which is the subject of this article. These, you keep telling us, are inevitable... you decided that we should not bother about the disease-causing errors and should only focus on all those parts of the system that worked perfectly. THAT is the subject of this discussion, together with the implications of the "freedom" your God could not avoid giving to the molecules.
Thanks for the review, but you really haven't responded to the point this is more than likely the only 'best' living biochemical system we can have that God gave us.
DAVID: This discussion is back to theodicy to which my answer is God knows what He is doing, even if some of it looks bad to us. I don't accept intelligent cells at all, on their own. They simply follow God's instruction. And God speciates.dhw: I know you don’t accept intelligent cells. That is the reason for my now bolded sentence concerning adaptation. Either cells are "free" to adapt, or your God preprogrammed or dabbled every adaptation. Please comment.
I did in the other thread: "How do you know the Cape Verde folks didn't have a chance lucky mutation? No God. It happens." Some of the odd hemoglobins in Africa arrived by chance and the mosquitoes arranged for humans to 'select' them, to use a Darwinian term. N oi God involved.
dhw: I agree that if God exists he knows what he is doing. Theodicy is only a problem if you believe that God is concerned about his creatures and wishes them no harm. It is no problem at all if you believe that his intention was to let life and evolution run free, and the mixture of good and bad was created intentionally. Hence our next exchange:
DAVID: I’ve said in my first book God did not create a Garden of Eden for us, as dull. Just your point and I AGREE.
dhw: So do you agree that your God may have deliberately created the good and the bad in order to avoid “dullness”? In that case, why all this talk of “errors”?
DAVID: The errors are part and parcel of the living biochemical system that keeps us alive. They had to be discussed.
dhw: And if what you call the “errors” were essential to God’s plan to create a mixture of good and bad, and not a dull “Garden of Eden”, we have resolved the issue: he had to give the molecules/cells their freedom if dullness was to be avoided.
They are free because the system had to be that way, dullness not a defining issue for God.
DAVID: And I had no idea, in advance, it would make you so uncomfortable.dhw: It doesn’t make me uncomfortable at all. I find the above explanation perfectly understandable and acceptable.
Great.
DAVID: God's dealt with the problem, I presume to His satisfaction and I agree with what He has done as the correct system by carefully analyzing how it works and why it has to work the way it does. It seems your discomfort has lead to much negative theory about God and his desires and purposes.dhw: But you have agreed with my point that you can’t have the good without the bad, as it would result in a dull “Garden of Eden”. There is nothing negative or positive in this. We are simply looking for explanations. But the discomfort is obviously yours, because elsewhere you have insisted that your God wouldn’t do anything to harm his creations, he cares for us etc. It is this “humanized” view of God which makes you so uncomfortable that you prefer to focus on all the successes and not even to discuss the disease-causing errors.
Note my reference to African hemoglobins. Sickle cell is a bad disease for some Blacks. I know all the problems, and it is only your interpretation that I ignore the problems. And I would never dare to humanize Him as you do constantly. Of course He must have some feelings for us, His creations, but exactly the depth is known only to Him. You prefer spectacle and experimentation, while I see Him as totally purposeful. On that we will always differ.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
DAVID (under “brain expansion”): The personality of your supposed God builds self-designing mechanisms knowing errors can happen. My God is in tight control of evolutionary advances to achieve the exact results He wants, even to bad viruses and bacteria, which for some unknown reason to us, He wants. (dhw’s bold)
We both have your God building a system and knowing “errors” can happen. I have suggested that he wants what you call the “errors” because he wants evolution to produce the variety of life forms and the mixture of “good and bad” which constitute the history of life on Earth. As you say yourself, a “Garden of Eden” would be dull. I also propose that what you call the freedom he gave to molecules to "disobey his instructions" was in fact the freedom to do their own designing, thus producing a less "dull" history than one in which he controls everything that develops.I know you disagree, but I cannot find any logical flaw in this theistic explanation of evolution. On the other hand, your suggestion now is that although he didn’t want to harm his creations, his system created errors (diseases)that harmed them – something he DIDN’T want but could not control - and he designed harmful bacteria and viruses, which he DID want but we don’t know why. Evolutionary errors (random mutations caused by his giving molecules the freedom to disobey his instructions) played no role or just an insignificant role in evolution. Not much point in mentioning them then. Summary: your God is in control except when he isn’t in control, and he wanted and designed harmful viruses although he didn’t want them to do any harm.
DAVID: ….you really haven't responded to the point this is more than likely the only 'best' living biochemical system we can have that God gave us.
I have no idea what is “more than likely” for an all-powerful God. We are simply offering different interpretations (see above) of his intentions in designing this system. As far as I can judge, my own offers a complete and logical explanation. I have tried to set out my objections to yours, since it seems once more to be full of contradictions.
DAVID: It seems your discomfort has lead to much negative theory about God and his desires and purposes.
dhw: […] the discomfort is obviously yours, because elsewhere you have insisted that your God wouldn’t do anything to harm his creations, he cares for us etc. It is this “humanized” view of God which makes you so uncomfortable that you prefer to focus on all the successes and not even to discuss the disease-causing errors.
DAVID: Note my reference to African hemoglobins. Sickle cell is a bad disease for some Blacks. I know all the problems, and it is only your interpretation that I ignore the problems.
Strange that you choose this example, as my wife had sickle cells! Yes, you know all the problems, but for some reason you regard them as “minimal” in the great scheme of things – just 0.000001% of the “system”, and so you keep urging me to think of all the good things and to stop thinking about the nasty “errors”.
DAVID: And I would never dare to humanize Him as you do constantly. Of course He must have some feelings for us, His creations, but exactly the depth is known only to Him. You prefer spectacle and experimentation, while I see Him as totally purposeful. On that we will always differ.
I quote: “It is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to His creations“…”He didn’t wish us ill”...”His human attributes IMHO are God-like, His concern for us like our concern for others.” And this is not “humanizing”? I offer alternative purposes, including your own anthropocentric one (hence experimentation). We both see him as “totally purposeful”, but the only purpose you can think of is the creation of H. sapiens, which fails to explain 99% of life’s history.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
by David Turell , Sunday, September 27, 2020, 19:57 (1516 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID (under “brain expansion”): The personality of your supposed God builds self-designing mechanisms knowing errors can happen. My God is in tight control of evolutionary advances to achieve the exact results He wants, even to bad viruses and bacteria, which for some unknown reason to us, He wants. (dhw’s bold)
dhw: We both have your God building a system and knowing “errors” can happen. I have suggested that he wants what you call the “errors” because he wants evolution to produce the variety of life forms and the mixture of “good and bad” which constitute the history of life on Earth. As you say yourself, a “Garden of Eden” would be dull. I also propose that what you call the freedom he gave to molecules to "disobey his instructions" was in fact the freedom to do their own designing, thus producing a less "dull" history than one in which he controls everything that develops.I know you disagree, but I cannot find any logical flaw in this theistic explanation of evolution. On the other hand, your suggestion now is that although he didn’t want to harm his creations, his system created errors (diseases)that harmed them – something he DIDN’T want but could not control - and he designed harmful bacteria and viruses, which he DID want but we don’t know why. Evolutionary errors (random mutations caused by his giving molecules the freedom to disobey his instructions) played no role or just an insignificant role in evolution. Not much point in mentioning them then. Summary: your God is in control except when he isn’t in control, and he wanted and designed harmful viruses although he didn’t want them to do any harm.
God gave us the best system He could design. I have explained the biochemical considerations based on the need for the speed of reactions for life to occur.
DAVID: ….you really haven't responded to the point this is more than likely the only 'best' living biochemical system we can have that God gave us.dhw: I have no idea what is “more than likely” for an all-powerful God. We are simply offering different interpretations (see above) of his intentions in designing this system. As far as I can judge, my own offers a complete and logical explanation. I have tried to set out my objections to yours, since it seems once more to be full of contradictions.
What contradictions? I've clearly stated the molecules must be free to react so swiftly. God gave us the only system He could.>
DAVID: It seems your discomfort has lead to much negative theory about God and his desires and purposes.dhw: […] the discomfort is obviously yours, because elsewhere you have insisted that your God wouldn’t do anything to harm his creations, he cares for us etc. It is this “humanized” view of God which makes you so uncomfortable that you prefer to focus on all the successes and not even to discuss the disease-causing errors.
DAVID: Note my reference to African hemoglobins. Sickle cell is a bad disease for some Blacks. I know all the problems, and it is only your interpretation that I ignore the problems.
dhw: Strange that you choose this example, as my wife had sickle cells! Yes, you know all the problems, but for some reason you regard them as “minimal” in the great scheme of things – just 0.000001% of the “system”, and so you keep urging me to think of all the good things and to stop thinking about the nasty “errors”.
Your wife probably had 'trait' which is common, mild, and not homozygous. I've covered my thoughts further in an other thread. The whole problem relates to mutations that survive because of their partial help with malaria.
DAVID: And I would never dare to humanize Him as you do constantly. Of course He must have some feelings for us, His creations, but exactly the depth is known only to Him. You prefer spectacle and experimentation, while I see Him as totally purposeful. On that we will always differ.dhw: I quote: “It is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to His creations“…”He didn’t wish us ill”...”His human attributes IMHO are God-like, His concern for us like our concern for others.” And this is not “humanizing”? I offer alternative purposes, including your own anthropocentric one (hence experimentation). We both see him as “totally purposeful”, but the only purpose you can think of is the creation of H. sapiens, which fails to explain 99% of life’s history.
Only in your mind. History tells us God chose to evolve us from bacteria. This is a difference we will never solve between us, as long as you will not recognize God's right to choose His method of creation.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
DAVID (under "DARC mutations"): How do you know the Cape Verde folks didn't have a chance lucky mutation? No God. It happens.
dhw: I’m sure the Darwinians you despise so much will be delighted at your belief in the beneficial powers of chance mutations. As you said earlier[…] : “What is wrong with a random chance mutation, if it fits God’s plan to be allowed to pass through??? Chance can play a role!!!” You hurriedly withdrew that when you realized the implications, but now you are happy to accept a random mutation which solves a problem that neither your God’s “backups” nor our finest scientists have been able to solve. I’m not discounting chance, but I reckon intelligent cells are a more likely explanation.
DAVID: You endlessly review past history and distort it. In evolution I said a chance beneficial mutation but not exactly what God wanted could be allowed.
You wrote that he allows it to pass through “if it fits his plan”. That = what he wanted. In any case, that doesn’t change the fact that you now believe in a chance mutation that solves a problem neither your God nor humans have been able to solve.
DAVID: […] DARC is a chance mutation with no species change.
Agreed, but if a chance mutation can solve one complex problem, maybe it could solve others even to the point of creating new species. I don’t buy it myself. You’re the one who has opened that door.
dhw: You have identified two forms of error in the system: evolutionary and disease-causing. You do not have your God in full control of his systems if he can’t control the errors that cause disease! You talk about backups which sometimes succeed and sometimes don’t. Now we have random mutations which succeed where your God failed. As far as evolution is concerned, do you or do you not accept that adaptation goes ahead without your God’s intervention? If so, do you or do you not accept that (theistic version) your God must have created a mechanism enabling cells to change their structure in accordance with the demands of the environment?
DAVID: God controls evolution by designing the new genomes in each subsequent stage. The bold is total distortion of my presentation.
The bold is not a reference to evolution! It refers to disease! The rest of your post ignores my two questions.
dhw: Summary: your God is in control except when he isn’t in control, and he wanted and designed harmful viruses although he didn’t want them to do any harm.
DAVID: God gave us the best system He could design. I have explained the biochemical considerations based on the need for the speed of reactions for life to occur.
Yes, you have. And you tell us God is in control, though he can’t control the disease-causing errors, but we shouldn’t focus on these because they are “minimal” (0.000001% of the system). We should only think of the successes.
DAVID: ….you really haven't responded to the point this is more than likely the only 'best' living biochemical system we can have that God gave us.
dhw: I have no idea what is “more than likely” for an all-powerful God. We are simply offering different interpretations (see above) of his intentions in designing this system. As far as I can judge, my own offers a complete and logical explanation. I have tried to set out my objections to yours, since it seems once more to be full of contradictions.
DAVID: What contradictions? I've clearly stated the molecules must be free to react so swiftly. God gave us the only system He could.
See the bolded summary above for contradictions.
DAVID: And I would never dare to humanize Him as you do constantly. Of course He must have some feelings for us, His creations, but exactly the depth is known only to Him. You prefer spectacle and experimentation, while I see Him as totally purposeful. On that we will always differ.
dhw: I quote: “It is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to His creations“…”He didn’t wish us ill”...”His human attributes IMHO are God-like, His concern for us like our concern for others.” And this is not “humanizing”? I offer alternative purposes, including your own anthropocentric one (hence experimentation). We both see him as “totally purposeful”, but the only purpose you can think of is the creation of H. sapiens, which fails to explain 99% of life’s history.
DAVID: Only in your mind. History tells us God chose to evolve us from bacteria. This is a difference we will never solve between us, as long as you will not recognize God's right to choose His method of creation.
You accused me of “daring” to humanize God, as if the bolds above were not “humanization”! If God chose to evolve us from bacteria, he also chose to evolve every other multicellular organism from bacteria. History does not even tell us that God exists, but if he does, history still doesn’t tell us that he preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, or that every one was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. Of course I recognize God’s right to choose his method AND his purpose. I do not recognize YOUR right to insist that YOUR interpretation of his method and purpose is the only possible one!
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
by David Turell , Monday, September 28, 2020, 18:17 (1515 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: […] DARC is a chance mutation with no species change.
dhw: Agreed, but if a chance mutation can solve one complex problem, maybe it could solve others even to the point of creating new species. I don’t buy it myself. You’re the one who has opened that door.
You opened the door; I didn't as your imagination runs wild with another 'maybe'.
dhw: You have identified two forms of error in the system: evolutionary and disease-causing. You do not have your God in full control of his systems if he can’t control the errors that cause disease! You talk about backups which sometimes succeed and sometimes don’t. Now we have random mutations which succeed where your God failed. As far as evolution is concerned, do you or do you not accept that adaptation goes ahead without your God’s intervention? If so, do you or do you not accept that (theistic version) your God must have created a mechanism enabling cells to change their structure in accordance with the demands of the environment?
God has allowed living organisms to adapt. We all know that. So malaria is now a God failure? Malaria is part of the bush of life, raises issues of theodicy, an area of great debate with very clear theistic points of view.
DAVID: God controls evolution by designing the new genomes in each subsequent stage. The bold is total distortion of my presentation.The bold is not a reference to evolution! It refers to disease! The rest of your post ignores my two questions.
Handled by new entry above.
dhw: Summary: your God is in control except when he isn’t in control, and he wanted and designed harmful viruses although he didn’t want them to do any harm.DAVID: God gave us the best system He could design. I have explained the biochemical considerations based on the need for the speed of reactions for life to occur.
dhw: Yes, you have. And you tell us God is in control, though he can’t control the disease-causing errors, but we shouldn’t focus on these because they are “minimal” (0.000001% of the system). We should only think of the successes.
Back to the donut or its hole.
DAVID: ….you really haven't responded to the point this is more than likely the only 'best' living biochemical system we can have that God gave us.dhw: I have no idea what is “more than likely” for an all-powerful God. We are simply offering different interpretations (see above) of his intentions in designing this system. As far as I can judge, my own offers a complete and logical explanation. I have tried to set out my objections to yours, since it seems once more to be full of contradictions.
DAVID: What contradictions? I've clearly stated the molecules must be free to react so swiftly. God gave us the only system He could.
dhw: See the bolded summary above for contradictions.
Avoidance! No answer to my theory about why we have the living system God gave us.
DAVID: And I would never dare to humanize Him as you do constantly. Of course He must have some feelings for us, His creations, but exactly the depth is known only to Him. You prefer spectacle and experimentation, while I see Him as totally purposeful. On that we will always differ.dhw: I quote: “It is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to His creations“…”He didn’t wish us ill”...”His human attributes IMHO are God-like, His concern for us like our concern for others.” And this is not “humanizing”? I offer alternative purposes, including your own anthropocentric one (hence experimentation). We both see him as “totally purposeful”, but the only purpose you can think of is the creation of H. sapiens, which fails to explain 99% of life’s history.
DAVID: Only in your mind. History tells us God chose to evolve us from bacteria. This is a difference we will never solve between us, as long as you will not recognize God's right to choose His method of creation.
dhw: You accused me of “daring” to humanize God, as if the bolds above were not “humanization”! If God chose to evolve us from bacteria, he also chose to evolve every other multicellular organism from bacteria. History does not even tell us that God exists, but if he does, history still doesn’t tell us that he preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, or that every one was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. Of course I recognize God’s right to choose his method AND his purpose. I do not recognize YOUR right to insist that YOUR interpretation of his method and purpose is the only possible one!
It is for me and many religious. I don't have to list how many humanizing p;urposese you have given to your version of a supposed God.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections III
by David Turell , Monday, September 28, 2020, 20:50 (1515 days ago) @ David Turell
The issue of the requirement high speed is never acknowledged by dhw. I've found an example of the requirements:
https://inference-review.com/letter/on-the-origins-of-life
"In stark contrast, bacteria with all levels of complexity must generate at least 10,000 ATP molecules/second/µm2 within their cell membranes to simply maintain their integrity against the constant thermodynamic forces disrupting their homeostatic stability. A drop in power results in metabolism halting and the cell irreversibly decomposing into an amorphous conglomeration of simpler chemicals. The required energy production rate corresponds to 1 cm2 of a mica sheet driving trillions of energetically unfavorable reactions every second.
"The challenge lies in the fact that any prebiotic chemical system gradually moving away from equilibrium experiences increasingly strong thermodynamic forces pushing it back toward equilibrium.13 In turn, the system would require an increasingly large supply of chemical energy just to counterbalance these forces and even greater amounts to continue its progress toward an autonomous cell.
***
"Any evolving system of chemical processes would favor those that move the fastest towards lower free energy. In contrast, nearly every metabolic reaction within a cell does not occur spontaneously without supplied energy. If it were otherwise, the cell would be too slow to compete with countless other possible reactions in an ancient marine environment. Even if all life-relevant processes could occur as easily as abiotic processes, the chances that a random set of reactions and molecular structures coalesced into a viable cell is far too small to have ever occurred without high levels of orchestration."
Comment: I have used these quoted sections in a slightly off-kilter way. They are from a debate on the origin of life, but they make the point of the enormous amount of energy living cells require and the speed of turn over and production. Imagine the bacteria described above as an equivalent to each of your trillions of cells operating at all times under your intact skin. A rigid assembly line won't work so the molecules float freely in the cells liquid interior. God's design and errors can happen. God knew the problem and set up His editing systems.
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
DAVID: The issue of the requirement high speed is never acknowledged by dhw. I've found an example of the requirements.
I acknowledge it and have never doubted it! That is not the issue! The issue is the implications of this system in relation to your God’s intentions, methods and nature, particularly in the two contexts of evolution and disease, which are the two categories of ”error” you initially tried to explain.
DAVID: […] DARC is a chance mutation with no species change.
dhw: Agreed, but if a chance mutation can solve one complex problem, maybe it could solve others even to the point of creating new species. I don’t buy it myself. You’re the one who has opened that door.
DAVID: You opened the door; I didn't as your imagination runs wild with another 'maybe'.
You opened the door initially with your championship of random mutations as a direction-changer for evolution (since withdrawn), and now you have opened it again with your belief that a random mutation can provide protection against one of the diseases that has resulted from your God’s creation of harmful organisms (though apparently he wishes us no harm).
DAVID: So malaria is now a God failure? Malaria is part of the bush of life, raises issues of theodicy, an area of great debate with very clear theistic points of view.
Who designed the parasite? But it is ONLY a failure if, as you have stated, your God doesn’t wish us any harm. Of course the nasty viruses, bacteria, parasites and “errors” in God’s specially designed system of life are part of the bush of life. And theodicy is what we are discussing here. Your solution appears to be that I should stop thinking about the bad bits (“back to the donut and its hole”) and focus on the good bits. I’m suggesting as you did that a Garden of Eden would be dull, and that the mixture of good and bad is precisely what your God wanted, and he achieved what he wanted by giving cells the freedom to do their own designing.
dhw: As far as evolution is concerned, do you or do you not accept that adaptation goes ahead without your God’s intervention? If so, do you or do you not accept that (theistic version) your God must have created a mechanism enabling cells to change their structure in accordance with the demands of the environment?
DAVID: God has allowed living organisms to adapt. We all know that.
That is not what I am asking! Please answer the questions - especially the second.
dhw: Summary: your God is in control except when he isn’t in control, and he wanted and designed harmful viruses although he didn’t want them to do any harm.
DAVID: ….you really haven't responded to the point this is more than likely the only 'best' living biochemical system we can have that God gave us.
dhw: I have no idea what is “more than likely” for an all-powerful God. We are simply offering different interpretations […]*- of his intentions in designing this system. As far as I can judge, my own offers a complete and logical explanation. I have tried to set out my objections to yours, since it seems once more to be full of contradictions.
DAVID: What contradictions?[…].
dhw: See the bolded summary above for contradictions.
DAVID: Avoidance! No answer to my theory about why we have the living system God gave us.
You asked me what contradictions, and I have pointed them out. I answered your “most likely” comment by saying I don’t know what an almighty God is capable of. I accept your explanation of how the system works, and that is not in dispute. As I keep saying, the issue is the different implications regarding your God’s intentions etc.
DAVID: History tells us God chose to evolve us from bacteria. This is a difference we will never solve between us, as long as you will not recognize God's right to choose His method of creation.
dhw: You accused me of “daring” to humanize God, as if the bolds above [e.g. “His concern for us like our concern for others"] were not “humanization”! If God chose to evolve us from bacteria, he also chose to evolve every other multicellular organism from bacteria. […][History] doesn’t tell us that he preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, or that every one was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. Of course I recognize God’s right to choose his method AND his purpose. I do not recognize YOUR right to insist that YOUR interpretation of his method and purpose is the only possible one!
DAVID: It is for me and many religious.
How does that come to mean that any different interpretation is a denial of God’s right to choose his method of creation?
DAVID: I don't have to list how many humanizing purposes you have given to your version of a supposed God.
Let’s not argue over how many “humanizing” purposes we each propose and whose might be right. Here’s a simple choice for you, based on two of your premises. QUESTION: Why did God design every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. that ever existed? ANSWER 1: Because the only life forms he wanted to design were H. sapiens plus food supply. ANSWER 2: Because he wanted to design them all. Which of these would you say makes more sense?
David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II
by David Turell , Tuesday, September 29, 2020, 17:47 (1514 days ago) @ dhw
DAVID: The issue of the requirement high speed is never acknowledged by dhw. I've found an example of the requirements.
dhw: I acknowledge it and have never doubted it! That is not the issue! The issue is the implications of this system in relation to your God’s intentions, methods and nature, particularly in the two contexts of evolution and disease, which are the two categories of ”error” you initially tried to explain.
DAVID: You opened the door; I didn't as your imagination runs wild with another 'maybe'.
dhw: You opened the door initially with your championship of random mutations as a direction-changer for evolution (since withdrawn), and now you have opened it again with your belief that a random mutation can provide protection against one of the diseases that has resulted from your God’s creation of harmful organisms (though apparently he wishes us no harm).
DAVID: So malaria is now a God failure? Malaria is part of the bush of life, raises issues of theodicy, an area of great debate with very clear theistic points of view.
dhw: Who designed the parasite? But it is ONLY a failure if, as you have stated, your God doesn’t wish us any harm. Of course the nasty viruses, bacteria, parasites and “errors” in God’s specially designed system of life are part of the bush of life. And theodicy is what we are discussing here. Your solution appears to be that I should stop thinking about the bad bits (“back to the donut and its hole”) and focus on the good bits. I’m suggesting as you did that a Garden of Eden would be dull, and that the mixture of good and bad is precisely what your God wanted, and he achieved what he wanted by giving cells the freedom to do their own designing.
I agree about the Garden of Eden but not the cells as you want them to be.
dhw: As far as evolution is concerned, do you or do you not accept that adaptation goes ahead without your God’s intervention? If so, do you or do you not accept that (theistic version) your God must have created a mechanism enabling cells to change their structure in accordance with the demands of the environment?DAVID: God has allowed living organisms to adapt. We all know that.
dhw: That is not what I am asking! Please answer the questions - especially the second.
Obviously, there are structural changes that are not speciation as part of adaptability.
dhw: Summary: your God is in control except when he isn’t in control, and he wanted and designed harmful viruses although he didn’t want them to do any harm.
Harmful viruses and bacteria keep life a challenge, and we have been given the brains to fight them.
DAVID: History tells us God chose to evolve us from bacteria. This is a difference we will never solve between us, as long as you will not recognize God's right to choose His method of creation.dhw: You accused me of “daring” to humanize God, as if the bolds above [e.g. “His concern for us like our concern for others"] were not “humanization”! If God chose to evolve us from bacteria, he also chose to evolve every other multicellular organism from bacteria. […][History] doesn’t tell us that he preprogrammed or dabbled every life form, or that every one was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. Of course I recognize God’s right to choose his method AND his purpose. I do not recognize YOUR right to insist that YOUR interpretation of his method and purpose is the only possible one!
DAVID: It is for me and many religious.
dhw: How does that come to mean that any different interpretation is a denial of God’s right to choose his method of creation?
DAVID: I don't have to list how many humanizing purposes you have given to your version of a supposed God.
dhw: Let’s not argue over how many “humanizing” purposes we each propose and whose might be right. Here’s a simple choice for you, based on two of your premises. QUESTION: Why did God design every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. that ever existed? ANSWER 1: Because the only life forms he wanted to design were H. sapiens plus food supply. ANSWER 2: Because he wanted to design them all. Which of these would you say makes more sense?
If God chose to evolve us of course He desired to create all the necessary stages as a part of the process. Answer one is your unreasonable version of my theory. We were His purposeful eventual outcome.