Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, August 10, 2021, 09:12 (991 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: They [cells] follow chemical algorithms accomplish that task

Wednesday, 4th August:
dhw: Do you mean that your God planted instructions on how to create each individual new antibody for each new future threat? Or do you mean that he gave our cells the ABILITY to recognize each new threat and to respond to it by creating new antibodies de novo without him having to intervene?

DAVID: You've got it!!! The latter portion of your comment is exactly what God did!

dhw: On 4th August, there were no instructions but your God gave cells the autonomous ability to design their own solutions “de novo”. On August 8th, cells follow algorithms (= instructions). It seems I am discussing these matters with two different people.

DAVID: You are playing word games. The bold is correct, with ABILITY referring to onboard instructions.

It is you who are playing word games. I gave you alternatives: instructions (the first “portion of my comment”) versus autonomous ability. You chose the ability to recognize new problems and to provide solutions “de novo”, and you therefore rejected instructions.

dhw: Even if your God designed the major changes, their purpose (e.g. turning legs into flippers) was to improve the organism’s chances of survival. These changes ARE speciation, and so….yet again…it is absurd to say that changes made in order to improve chances of survival have no connection with speciation.

DAVID: Survival is not proven to lead to speciation!!~!!!

I keep repeating that it is the QUEST for survival that leads to the changes in anatomy which ARE speciation, no matter how many exclamation marks you use.

Retinal design allows prediction of movement
dhw: I have responded to two different arguments. I have proposed that different degrees of vision etc. evolved gradually (you claim that retinal design had to be instant), and I have proposed that evolutionary changes (legs into flippers) evolved AS A RESULT of new requirements, whereas you claim they were created IN ANTICIPATION of new requirements.

DAVID: Yes we have different interpretations.

So do you believe that your God specially and instantly designed every degree of vision, or did degrees of vision appear gradually in different life forms? Thank you for confirming your belief that your God designs all major mutations before they are required (e.g. legs are turned into flippers before pre-whales enter the water). I wonder how many even of your ID-ers would support your theory.

Back to theodicy: fixing genome mistakes
DAVID: And my answer is the human impression of bad bacteria may be a mistaken human impression of bacteria acting in the wrong place. Bacteria started life and are very important in their current roles.

dhw: I don’t deny the latter. Your solution to the mystery of theodicy now seems to be the pious hope that all the terrible diseases caused by bad bacteria are a mistaken human impression. Unless…now, here’s a thought…by “bacteria acting in the wrong place” you mean that your all-powerful, all-knowing, always well-intentioned God actually gave bacteria the freedom to act independently and autonomously in a great free-for-all…

DAVID: Bacteria are not corralled, but are everywhere by design.

How does that explain your well-intentioned God’s direct design of those which he knew would cause untold harm to other life forms?

Neil Thomas
DAVID: I've found on page 55, I think, a strong objection to Darwin splitting the subject into two parts and ignored the origin of life to concentrate then on only evolution as if they were not obviously fully connected issues. More later.

dhw: I think it is perfectly reasonable to discuss the mechanisms of evolution without saying how those mechanisms came into being. You can explain how a motor engine works without giving the history of its origins, and in any case, Darwin himself allows for God as the creator of the mechanisms he describes.

DAVID: The splitting avoids God immediately.

Of course it doesn’t. Describing how a motor engine works does not immediately avoid the fact that it was invented by an intelligent mind. As above (and ignored by you), even Darwin, in later editions of Origin, refers to the Creator as the originator of the mechanisms.