Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 07, 2021, 19:58 (1117 days ago) @ dhw

Tectonics and environment

DAVID: No, the word information is used with great emphasis in ID literature as it relates to the coded instructions in DNA.

dhw: The word is used with great emphasis by many people, and it has even been used to tell us that information is the source of life. And such statements show precisely why it is the source of much unnecessary confusion.

Sorry for your confusion. Humans and many others receive sensory information and act by responding by using coded information following informational instructions in their DNA. Accept it.

Nasty butterflies

dhw: Ah! Well of course the converse to that would be that he created a mechanism which allowed autonomous complexification (you agree) and also autonomous expansion (you disagree), and either he knew it would end up with sapiens, or he watched with interest as it morphed into sapiens.

DAVID: Morphed by itself into the most complex living being all by itself???

dhw: You insist that ALL species, plus their lifestyles and natural wonders, from the simplest to the most complex, had to be directly designed by your God. I propose (theistic version) that he designed the mechanism which enabled ALL species, plus their lifestyles and natural wonders, to morph from simple cells to complex cell communities, from bacteria to dinosaurs, dogs, duckbilled platypuses and humans. The human anatomy is far from being the most complex, but you are clearly referring to one organ, the brain, and we have covered its evolution on the “pre-planning” thread.

A good, fair review of our positions.

dhw: Meanwhile, we are still left with the anomaly of an always-in-control God who gives free rein to caterpillar cannibalism and rape, but has to provide possums with a 3.8-billion-year-old programme or special courses on how to play dead in order to avoid being eaten.

DAVID: As usual confusing and conflating issues. Eat and be eaten is necessary, while a kindly God might wish to help possums in their self-protection. Perhaps God did not care if He if He made the predators hunt more difficult.

dhw: Lovely to see you suggesting that your God might have the wonderfully human attribute of kindliness. But the problem I have is understanding why he should create a mechanism enabling organisms to devise their own ways of killing and eating one another, and yet he can’t create a mechanism enabling them to avoid being killed and eaten. Yes, I do find it confusing. A much clearer theory would be that he created a mechanism whereby organisms could devise their own methods of killing and eating and of avoiding being killed and eaten.

I think organisms do devise methods of their form of killing, but that depends upon the attributes God gave them. Think of a pack of lionesses on the prowl. Killing machines because of God's gifts.