Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 08, 2021, 15:54 (1262 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You have now disowned your earlier statement that organisms use your God’s mechanisms INDEPENDENTLY for minor adaptations. You refuse to say whether independent processing of information, communication and decision-making are or are not signs of intelligence, and after my questions about 3.8 billion years’ worth of “algorithms” to cover every single eventuality past, present and future, you began with “I admit…” but won’t say what you admit.

I used 'I admit' as an introductory colloquial phase to a discussion of mountain and molehills of evolutionary adaptations. The only independent-of-God decisions by organisms are the decision to activate/use God's instructions in DNA

dhw: I am pointing out that if organisms (not just plants but all forms of life) have the autonomous intelligence to create minor adaptations, it is possible that they can do the same with major changes.

DAVID: The bold is your overarching cell intelligence theory based on the agreed-upon appearance of cell intelligence from all the cell activity we observe from the outside […]

Cdhw: orrect. It was agreed upon but now you’ve backtracked.

DAVID: […] but could come from God's instructions inside, based on a 50/50 probability I originally offered. I'm on the God side of the slash mark and you on the no-God side.

dhw: You did not offer 50/50 when you agreed that organisms acted INDEPENDENTLY when they used the God-given mechanism.

You should remember my prime positions

dhw: in case you’ve forgotten, is the claim that your God individually preprogrammed or dabbled every single innovation, lifestyle, natural wonder etc. in the history of life – and all of them were “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans.”

I never forget that illogical position. If God created the universe and life, why shouldn't He be allowed to run evolution? Your God is god-like now and then.

Clear evidence of common descent

dhw: You continually talk about the gaps between species (there is no fossil record), and try to use them as evidence that only God could have designed the new organs/organisms. “De novo” entails a jump, not a continuation!

I'll repeat. Your argument is support for God, Who is required to jump the gaps.

DAVID: Unfortunately you've lost the fact that the complexity in evolution builds in stages from the past. Bronto is now the lizards and lizard-like organisms that fill a portion of the ecosystems that feed the other existing organisms. God ("the same maker") supplies the continuity. I do not accept Darwin's common descent, I accept Gould's.

dhw: I didn’t know Gould was a proponent of Creationism, and he certainly didn’t know it either. All organisms either feed on or are fed on by other organisms. That does not mean that all organisms were specially designed by your God as part of his one and only goal to produce humans.

Relax, it is fact Gould made much of the gaps.

Evolution of the universe
DAVID: The universe had to evolve just as life did when the universe reached a point of fine-tuning to allow life. dhw with his human brain attempts to question God's reasons for a universe that looks like ours does. It allows him to question God's existence. We may never find all of God's reasons. That doesn't cause Him to disappear, does it?

dhw: Your usual desperate attempt to divert attention from your illogical theories by pretending that I am trying to get rid of God. I AM AN AGNOSTIC. I query your illogical theory of evolution, and I offer alternative THEISTIC theories. My reasons for not embracing theism have nothing to do with these discussions.

Your alternative theistic theories do not offer a god-like God.

“Hippocampal connections” And also “another helper molecule”
DAVID: When such an exact functioning molecule is found, repelling and attracting, I always wonder how chance evolution found it. There is no such thing as natural evolution.

dhw: I agree that chance evolution could not have organized these complexities, and I do NOT reject the idea of God as the designer. But that does not preclude his design of a cellular intelligence which would enable life forms to evolve autonomously.

I still don't understand why you want a God who does things secondhand. Another example of your weak-god theistic theories. Most God-believing folks view Him as all powerful, all knowing, past present and future, all purposeful, etc. You always weaken and modify and make Him amorphous.