Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Friday, May 28, 2021, 16:07 (1066 days ago) @ dhw

Fungi helped plants
DAVID: Adaptation instructions are in the genome, since the genome is the master code running the processes of life. God made life. Why struggle with your questions?

dhw: I’m not asking where the instructions are situated. First you agree that the adaptations are made independently of God, then you have God giving instructions. So I’m asking what these consist of and when you think your God inserted them. Please don’t dodge!

I haven't changed. God designed evolution and simple adaptive changes (epigenetics) allow organisms to independently make small changes by following God's instructions

Ant raids
QUOTE: There's probably some very interesting division of labor going on, and there's

DAVID: It works because individual ants are programmed to do the same thing over and over.

dhw: Except that they don’t: “There are several decisions the colony must make in the course of the raid.” Simple alternatives: did your God plant each decision in his 3.8-billion-year-old programme for all species and their decisions? Or does he watch each raid and tell each ant what to do? Or did he give ants the intelligence with which to make their own decisions?

Colony decisions cause individual ants to do their simple response, as many studies have shown. You are equating whole colonies reactions it what the single ant does. God is not in action here.

Neutron stars
dhw: Why such a vast universe with such “weird objects” if his only purpose was to create humans plus food supply?

DAVID: It is your sole mystery. For an answer please refer to yesterday's entry:
Back to theodicy: guessing about God's 'bad' designs (The nature of a \'Creator\')

dhw: That was your attempt to dodge the origin of evil by switching to bad design. But if you are confident that one day science will find a good reason for your God’s creation of all these weird objects, let’s leave it at that. Some of us prefer to wait for an explanation before we commit ourselves to judgement. “Why do humans guess at God’s designs before they have the full story?” (D. Turell)

Thank you.

Clear evidence of common descent
"This mechanism likely has been conserved since the last common ancestor of all eukaryotes." (David’s bold)

DAVID: That evolution is a continuum from start to now is clearly shown by studies of the evolution of the genome controls. God, as designer, makes it easy for Himself in creating common descent.

dhw: I agree that evolution is a continuum in the form of a bush that has constantly expanded into thousands and thousands of branches (different life forms), though these are not connected to one another.

The past does show the connections. You are slicing up evolution into segments again.

dhw: (We have agreed not to discuss the “connection” aspect of your theory of evolution.) However, your idea of “common descent” is “the initial and consistent use of DNA in all initial forms from DNA to us. My whole point is God creating species de novo” (under “conserved gene order”, quoted by me on 20 May). The Cambrian is your prime example. This is the direct opposite of what we normally understand by “common descent”, which is that all life forms (except the first) are directly descended from previous life forms. Just clarifying!

Come on. God's designs are not discontinuous. Slicing again. New is built upon old. You are correct about the Cambrian but consider also start of life. Both seem pure invention. But the Cambrian must have used the same DNA genome codes while origin of life invented the codes.