Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Monday, August 23, 2021, 15:32 (1186 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Exactly correct as a description of what I believe. From the beginning all immune cells know what to do since they have instructions to follow.

dhw: In other words, you have gone back 3.8 billion years, when your God provided the first cells with details of every solution to every problem in a programme to be passed down to every cell in every species for the rest of life’s history. Apparently that is what you meant when you agreed that your God had provided immune cells with the autonomous ability (without intervention) to respond to new problems by creating new antibodies “de novo”. Autonomy apparently means obeying instructions.

Final sentence is exactly my meaning. Proviso, either instructions in the first bacterial genome, or more likely dabbled instructions added all along the way..

The role of survival in evolution

DAVID: You have explained my point. Something drives evolution to more complexity, the only explanation for our appearance. God.

dhw: And so I repeat: the changes that lead to speciation (and to more complexity), even if they have been designed by your God, have been made for the purpose of improving the organism’s chances of survival. You have agreed: "Survival is required for each new stage until the next stage appears.” If survival is required, then the need for survival is the reason why your God designed the changes that have led to speciation. This remains true even if he only wanted the species to survive so that he could finally design humans.

As long as you don't try to have survival driving evolution I agree.

Retinal design

DAVID: You have the answer: Irreducible complexity means fully designed from its beginning.

dhw: I know what the expression means. I take it then that your God designed every single type of nose and brain “de novo”. So now we have the following history of evolution. God, who only wanted to design humans and their food, programmed the first cells with solutions to all the immunity problems (human and otherwise) that might arise for the rest of life’s history, but he also popped in whenever he wanted to design new types of nose and brain. He couldn’t use existing noses and brains, because each design is fully designed from its beginning.

Each fully new species involved redesign at that new stage. Think of whale series.

Evolution can work in reverse
DAVID: In Darwinist terms, it is obvious advanced complexification through natural selection isn't required. Animals can get by with less complexity than previously present.

dhw: In Darwinist terms, then, natural selection discards any complexity which, under new conditions, is no longer required. Simple.

DAVID: You simply agreed. Happens now and then.

dhw: Sorry, I thought you were trying to denigrate Darwin again instead of supporting him.

No, I'm really nice to the original Darwin. The current sycophants are who upset me as they cling to a distorted Darwinism.