Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, September 27, 2021, 11:50 (935 days ago) @ David Turell

I’ve transferred the “errors” discussion to “Theodicy”.

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: […] And then there is the Cambrian. Open your mind!!! Or will your Darwinian castle crumble?

dhw: […] 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.

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

Gaps demonstrate the absence of fossils, or a period when there were no new species (Gould’s punctuated equilibrium). How itty-bitty is itty-bitty? It might take many generations for large design changes to perfect themselves (I’m thinking of legs becoming flippers), but even the Cambrian offers millions of years and generations for such changes to take place. And please remember that each stage will still be a fully formed organism - pre-whales could still have swum with legs that had become less leggy. I don’t know what special knowledge you have that makes you so certain about the potential capabilities of cells.

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.)

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

Of course they change! How else could you get new species? And if they change in response to challenges, I'd have thought that meant the challenges come before the changes. Of course you are free to believe that your God looks into his crystal ball and changes the cells beforehand – but please don’t tell me that cells don’t ‘change’.

dhw: (RE God’s “instructions”): 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.

DAVID: Immune cells are built/designed to automatically make new antibodies against newly-appearing invading organisms.

I know what immune cells do. I’m asking you how your God “instructs” them to do it. With a library of instructions to choose from, or does he keep popping in to tell them what to do as and when each new invader arrives on the scene? Please answer.