Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 13, 2021, 15:52 (1049 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Define dodging in a debate. I strongly feel I am answering honestly about my beliefs and theories.

dhw: The most blatant of examples is when someone is asked a question and avoids answering it. You see it all the time in political interviews. In your case, the question is: why would a purposeful, all-powerful God whose sole purpose is to design H. sapiens (plus lunch), have specially designed millions of life forms, lunches, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc., 99% of which had no connection with H. sapiens?...the fact is you can’t provide an explanation for what in fact is inexplicable, as you yourself occasionally admit until once more you insist that the theory is logical. It isn’t, and so we begin the same round of question from me and dodges from you.

You have admitted God in charge can chose to do what He wishes to do. History displays God's actions. Therefore what is logical is God chose His method of producing humans by historical evolution. Your complaint is a dispute with God's logic as I view it. And as for your complaint that I can't explain why God did it that way, I just accept it. I can guess and have in the past, but those guesses are just as worthless as your as would be and in my view have been. I.E., free-for-all, for one.

Clear evidence of common descent
dhw: Once more: do you believe that every life form (apart from the first) is descended from a previous life form, or every life form was created from scratch (de novo)?

DAVID: Many life forms are modifications of previous species: birds came from a branch of dinosaurs, and their design did not require a complete rewrite. I pose God as the rewriting engineer which gives us descent with modification. Frankly the only full de novo I know is the Cambrian explosion.

dhw: Thank you. Of course common descent entails modification – otherwise there would be no speciation! As regards the Cambrian, you do not “know” that species were designed “de novo”. You assume they were because of the absence of fossils, and because some scientists express disbelief that new species could evolve by chance during such a short period of time. Time is relative. The “explosion” began approx. 540 million years ago. That is one helluva long time by any standards, and the fact that ANY fossils have survived is itself amazing. It lasted for up to 25 million years, but even if the productive period was “only”, say, 10 million years, that is also one helluva long time. As for chance, I would argue that any innovation leading to the complexities of new organs and organisms suggests design rather than chance, BUT…design is not confined to your God. Hence the theory of cellular intelligence (possibly provided by your God). And the intelligent response of organisms to changing conditions through millions and millions of years would provide a rational explanation for the Cambrian Explosion, as it does for the rest of evolution. What remains unexplained is the origin of the mechanisms and the intelligence that drives them.

Answered separately today

Ingenious research tricks
DAVID: Cell intelligence (dhw theory) can't create this. Only a highly-advanced designing mind can.

dhw: I’m not proposing that the cell’s intelligence created the way in which it functions! The research (vividly) reveals the mechanisms. It can’t reveal the intelligence that controls the mechanisms, any more than it can reveal your God’s 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for all its transformations.

DAVID: My same purpose: as we reveal the complexity of life's processes only a superior designing mind must exist.

dhw: But we should separate Chapters One and Two of life’s processes. Your God may have designed the original mechanisms and processes involved in Chapter One (Darwin himself allows for that), which would include the cellular intelligence championed by certain distinguished scientists, but that does not mean God must have designed Chapter Two, which is the speciation that constitutes evolution.

Separating origin of life and evolution of life is a debating crutch to avoid the issues involved in a debate about God.