Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 09, 2021, 13:07 (1261 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 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.

dhw: If God exists, he can do what he likes. That doesn't mean his one purpose was to design H. sapiens, and therefore he designed millions of organisms “de novo”, 99% of which had no connection with H. sapiens. Dodge, dodge, dodge!

'Dodge, dodge, dodge' is my belief!!!

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!

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

dhw: It's not my argument! It's you who claim that because there is no fossil record of every stage of every organism, God must have created species “de novo”. That means you believe evolution was NOT a continuous process of common descent.

It is continuous if God designs each stage creating the appearance of natural common descent

dhw: I didn’t know Gould was a proponent of Creationism,

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

dhw: His point was that evolution is not slow and steady but proceeds in fits and starts. How does this come to mean that your God created all species “de novo” in order to design you and me?

Nature didn't do the de novo designs.

Differing star nurseries

DAVID: this will only add to dhw's confusion as to why God created this universe, which is not uniform everywhere. We still don't have many answers about the mysteries we observe. The simplest approach is to accept God's doings and then figure out why.

dhw: Hardly my “confusion” if you can’t understand it yourself. Of course the simplest approach if you can’t find a logical explanation is to cling to your rigid beliefs. Let me know when you’ve figured out why, and then I’ll stop questioning your rigid beliefs.

My so-called rigid belief is to simply accept God knows what He is doing and it takes our years and years of research to figure it out.

Blood clotting
QUOTE: The workhorses to stem bleeding are platelets -- tiny 2-micrometer cells in the blood in charge of making the initial plug.

DAVID: My question is how did unguided evolution invent such a critical but totally controlled process?

dhw: Every innovation would have required continuous solving of new problems. The common thread in this process is cells finding the solutions. You claim they were all preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago, or alternatively your God was always there to deliver new instructions when needed. A theistic alternative is that he gave cells the wherewithal to figure out their own solutions.

To have controlled clotting all stop and start parts had to be designed together.

Survival of the fittest
QUOTE: Oftentimes, the most reproductively successful species and individuals are the ones who cooperate, who are the friendliest.

dhw: Back we go to Lynn Margulis, who not only championed the cause of cooperation as the leading force in evolutionary progress, but was also a devout believer in cellular intelligence.

QUOTE: "'Survival of the fittest" […is…] not meant to refer to 'Hunger Games'-style ruthless competition, only to an organism's ability to thrive and reproduce in a specific environment."

DAVID: Good explanation of its limits, but it still a surviving tautology even with those limits.

dhw: Yes, it’s an important point, and all credit to Darwin for NOT having invented the term, which has so often been abused.

In view of all our continued disagreements, I’d like to restore the balance by once again saying how much I appreciate your posting these articles. They are now the true lifeblood of our forum.

Thank you