Back to David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, September 18, 2020, 10:54 (1525 days ago) @ David Turell

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.