Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 14:02 (1005 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I believe in the appearance of common descent from the way God evolved everything. When something is no longer needed for an advance it becomes extinct.

dhw: Let us remember that by “evolved” you mean individually designed. So he individually designed all the life forms that had no connection with humans to make it appear that they had descended from an earlier organism. And apparently extinction doesn’t take place when an organism is no longer able to cope with existing conditions, but when God doesn’t need it any more for the next step in his design of humans, although he had originally designed most organisms without their having any connection with humans anyway.

DAVID: Is it hard to conceive that God created each succeeding stage by modifying the previous stage? Thus each advance is based upon the previous and can appear from the outside like the Darwin 'descent by modification' evolution you accept? I'm saying the same thing but I use God as the driver, and certainly not the need for survival Which is your unproven common sense reasoning. I hope you can really recognize the limits of common sense that directly tells me the sun revolves about the Earth.

We are not talking about the sun and the earth! Please tell us why you think [edited later] adaptation to new conditions, new methods of catching prey, defence strategies, dealing with disease etc. have no connection with survival, and why you are convinced that less efficient life forms are just as likely to survive as more efficient life forms.

T-cells
DAVID: As above each new stage is designed for its future needs, based on an underlying very flexible genome code present in its initial design in bacteria.

dhw: A flexible genome code has to be present in all life forms if they are to evolve into something else. According to you, T cells respond to new events. I suggest that is the case with ALL cells and cell communities, and underlies the whole process of evolution. Every change is a RESPONSE to something new, as opposed to being pre-planned.

DAVID: They are designed to be as responsive as you describe.

dhw: Thank you. Exit the theory that cells are only designed to obey instructions set out for them before changes are required (= pre-planning).

DAVID: I love your wishful thinking I've changed.

If organisms are designed to RESPOND to something new by making changes, as opposed to the changes being planned and made BEFORE the arrival of something new, it is obviously nonsense to say they have already been provided with the responses before the new situation arose! (See also "tomatoes" on the ID thread.)

Theistic evolution vs Darwinism [...]
dhw: Since I have constantly repeated my acceptance of the logic of ID, perhaps you will now do me the honour of assuming that I mean what I say!

DAVID: I know you do.

Thank you. Another non-argument put to rest.

DAVID: All of us accept common descent which is not an active issue.

dhw: Whenever you talk of “de novo” creation, you oppose the concept of common descent.

DAVID: 'Common descent' is the result/appearance of God designing successive stages of life.

dhw: Common descent is the theory that every organism apart from the first descended from earlier organisms. It is not life that undergoes successive stages, but organisms. If you say your God created species “de novo” there can be no link with preceding organisms.

DAVID: We don't interpret de novo the same. I have been using it in the 'anew' sense, and see that is not strictly correct.

“De novo” does mean “anew” in the sense of starting all over again (repetition), and that is certainly not what you meant. Another meaning is doing something different right from the beginning, which again does not = common descent. I think you mean that your God took existing creatures and then modified them in different ways. Unfortunately, however, you keep seizing on the Cambrian and telling us that all those species came out of thin air and not out of antecedents. So you believe in common descent except when your God creates species out of thin air.