Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, August 01, 2021, 16:25 (1000 days ago) @ dhw

Death is built in

DAVID: This is a non-answer. I also know life has survival mechanisms. I reject 'survival of the fittest' drives/advances evolution. How do you see evolution advanced?

dhw: Evolution advances when organisms find new ways to improve their chances of survival. Just like the adaptations we know of – when organisms (cell communities) make changes to themselves in order to retain their identity when faced with new conditions (e.g. fish coping with polluted waters) – more complex changes are also engineered by the cells when required (e.g. legs changing into flippers). In all cases, the purpose of the changes is survival. What you call the “drive” is the need for change to enable survival, and the changes are what “advance” evolution.

The same empty survival of the fittest argument repeated. The 'drive' is God's designs of new advanced species as in whale series.

Immunity system complexity

dhw: WHAT instructions? Here is my theistic proposal: God has given cells the ABILITY to solve problems. God has NOT given cells the SOLUTIONS to all the problems. Do you agree?

DAVID: Word play. The instructions tell the cells how to recognize new invaders and then manufacture appropriate antibodies to fit onto the invading molecules to inactivate them. Of course God gave them this ability.

dhw: An ability is not the same as instructions. You have the ability to design your own house. God has not given you instructions on how to design your house. If you now agree that your God has given cells the autonomous ability to design appropriate antibodies, but does not give them instructions on how to construct each and every antibody, we can shake hands and duly apply the same distinction to evolution itself: cells have the autonomous ability to do their own designing. You believe that God gave them this ability, and I accept that possibility.

More word play. By 'ability' I mean instructive mechanisms in recognition and response by teh cells..

New extremophiles
dhw: Same as above. God has given cells the ability to solve problems. God has NOT given cells the solutions to all the problems. Do you agree?

DAVID: Of course, unless you backtrack as before. God gives the cells the ability to have the proper responses.

You will have to tell me where I have backtracked, since this is the proposal I have been putting forward for years (if we presume that your God exists). Thank you anyway for confirming your agreement that your God does NOT provide solutions in advance, but has only provided the ability to find solutions. In the hope that you will not “backtrack”, may I point out to you that the ABILITY to solve problems requires autonomous intelligence and does not depend on being giving precise instructions on how to solve every individual problem.

As above God provides cells with complete mechanisms or recognition and response,.

Caterpillar memory

DAVID: At least you note the need for design from the beginning.

dhw: Yes, of course. And you have agreed that cells/cell communities have the ABILITY to do their own designing.

That is your misinterpretation of my theories.

Larvae use virus for immunity
dhw: Another wonderful example of the gigantic free-for-all, as all life forms struggle to find their own ways of survival. It’s half the story of evolution – the other half being cooperation for exactly the same purpose of survival. And yet some people can’t see the connection between evolution and the quest for survival.

DAVID: Survival is not the way speciation happens. Survival is simply live and let live. That is the true 'survival of the fittest' meaning.

dhw: The NEED for survival entails finding new ways of coping with changing conditions, and the new ways result in the anatomical changes that constitute speciation. See my post on ID.

Same repeated feeble survival of the fittest.