Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 28, 2021, 10:37 (1212 days ago) @ David Turell

T-cells
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.

dhw: 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.)

DAVID: Go back and look at all the entries on the amazing immune system. we are born with general protections and are designed to learn about every invader with newly developed responses we create. We are designed for future problem's by making new answers de novo.

Thank you for this excellent summary of the process I have been describing. We are born with the protections already produced by our forebears, and we develop new responses to new threats. The only “design for future problems” is our ability to make new answers. That means the new answers are not preprogrammed or dabbled in advance – it is only the ability (i.e. intelligence) to provide new answers that is already provided (possibly by your God). At last you have cottoned on.

Immunity system complexity
"Scientists have long suspected that even cells that are not traditionally involved in the immune response have the rudimentary ability to remember prior insults and learn from experience.”

Yet more evidence of cellular intelligence. It may be rudimentary by comparison with our own, but it is efficient enough to do the jobs for which it is required.

Theistic evolution vs Darwinism [...]
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.

dhw: “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.

DAVID: For Darwin and I the Cambrian is still out of thin air. The huge Chinese Ediacaran and Cambrian findings have simply made the gap sharper. Haven't you noticed what I present?

Of course I have. And it presents the same problem for you as for Darwin. You say you believe in common descent, but you also believe in separate creation. Darwin suggests that the fossil record is incomplete, and you suggest that your God changes his policy and creates species out of thin air. I support the theory that the fossil record is incomplete, and add that the other argument used by Creationists (not enough time for these new species to evolve) becomes irrelevant if we accept the theory of cellular intelligence (which plays no part in Darwin’s thinking).