Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, September 26, 2021, 15:41 (940 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I've explained progressively complex design is best done firsthand.

dhw: And I’ve explained that progressively complex design, including that of our progressively complex, autonomously intelligent brain, is “best done” firsthand by autonomously intelligent cell communities (perhaps designed by your God). That would save you all the trouble of having to explain why he specially designed all the life forms unconnected with humans, and all the “mistakes” that lead to disease and death (as discussed under “Theodicy”).

And what you don't seem to realize is your imagined God created an uncontrolled system which resulted in all the unwanted errors God wouldn't want. Not rational. My God created the only working system He could, recognized it was open to errors and built in editing systems.

DAVID: New species appear as new developments and thus the gaps in the fossil record. Even intermediate forms have gaps before and after in the series.

dhw: Of course there are gaps in the fossil record. You yourself have emphasized over and over again that evolution is a continuous process, but do you honestly think that every single stage of every single life form for the last three thousand million years should have left a specimen behind? Every stage of every species was once a fully formed organism, but dead bodies disintegrate in time!

DAVID: Same old non-answer. Even Gould accepted the gaps as real!!! And then there is the Cambrian. Open your mind!!! Or will your Darwinian castle crumble?

dhw: Of course the gaps are real! How could you possibly NOT have gaps in the fossil record? The Cambrian “Explosion” lasted millions of years – ample time for intelligent cells to adapt to or exploit new conditions, and thereby design the same innovations you believe your God dabbled, or preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago. This is not a Darwinian castle. He never thought of intelligent cells doing their own designing.

Darwin thought itty-bitty steps evolved species. Same non-answer. Gaps demonstrate large design changes intelligent cells can not create.

Immunity system complexity
dhw: The immune system typifies the whole process: cells respond to new conditions. You can argue that the cell is “irreducibly complex”, but cells combine, cooperate, communicate, restructure themselves, take decisions etc., and the result of these combined activities is the vast variety of life forms etc. that make up the history of evolution.

DAVID: All the result of God's designed instructions to quickly respond to new challenges.

dhw: (NB Good to see you acknowledging that cells change IN RESPONSE to new challenges, as opposed to your usual anticipation of them.)

Strange misinterpretation. Cells don't 'change'. They are prepared in advance by design to to respond to all challenges as they appear.

dhw: Please be more precise. Did your God leave them a note to say: RESPOND QUICKLY. Or did he leave them a list of instructions on what changes to make to themselves in order to meet every new challenge for the rest of life’s history? Or did he simply leave them with the autonomous ability to work out how to respond to new challenges as and when they arose?

DAVID: He gave them ability to recognize invaders and how to stop/kill them by implanting full instructions for the methodology. Cells don't/can't think.

dhw: So they autonomously recognize invaders, and then what? They have a library of instructions on how to kill every new invader for the rest of history, and all they have to do is choose the booklet that says: COVID-19? I wonder what went wrong.

Immune cells are built/designed to automatically make new antibodies against newly-appearing invading organisms. FYI: Current man-made vaccines are a shorthand way of helping us by showing our cells the cell-damaging spike Covid-19 uses. It is actually not as good as presenting the whole attenuated virus body itself. That style vaccine takes much longer to develop and prove.