Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 05, 2021, 10:54 (933 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I keep repeating a possible explanation for the “sudden appearance” of new species, and your only response so far has been that I ignore the “sudden appearance” of new species!

DAVID: Each point avoids the obvious gap in precursors, not recognizing the 50+ years of new findings in Chinese shale all of which reinforce the gap. It is Darwin's gap, unchanged since he noted it.

Each point contributes to a possible explanation of the gap. We are talking about a period that could cover vast numbers of generations, and about innovations that took place in different locations where changing conditions could trigger different responses. Most importantly, the possibility of cellular intelligence (perhaps designed by your God) allows for the jumps that Darwin considered impossible, and we cannot expect to find fossils of every innovation from 550+ million years ago. I suggest that the above combination of factors is at least as feasible as the theory that your God either preprogrammed or dabbled every single innovation - not just the Cambrian - and that he did so with the sole purpose of producing humans plus their food).

DAVID: God did not give cells the power to change their form or functions.

dhw: How do you know?

DAVID Today’s cells don’t change.

dhw: Cells do change their form and functions. If they didn’t, there could be no evolution. If your God can change their form and functions, then he is perfectly capable of giving them the means to do it themselves.

DAVID: True without an evidence, just supposition of impractical secondhand design.

So you agree that cells do change their form and function, and your only objection is that you happen to know that your God didn’t give them the power to do it themselves.

Immunity system complexity
DAVID: The XYZ additions are all the same. When added they kill. There is not the complexity of a dictionary of differences. […] All provided by God's design developed during evolution, no dabble necessary.

dhw: How can the XYZ additions all be the same if the invaders are different? What is there to develop if the solution to the problem is always the same? If the cells obey instructions which were not preprogrammed from the very beginning, how can your God develop his design without dabbling? Yes, the PROCESS is the same: new invader, new antibodies. But the details have to change, and if your God has not issued instructions for every single detail and does not dabble, then the cell community has to work out the details by itself. Impossible without thought.

DAVID: Don't believe me if that is your opinion. Making new antibodies is always the same process no matter who or what invades.

I have just stated (now bolded) that the process is the same! It’s the details that change.

DAVID: No new instructions from God are required to have the system work from birth onward. The system is built in to recognize all new invasions, like Covid 19, which never existed more than three + years ago. Yet we all make antibodies against it!!! God dabble not required.

Thank you for confirming that cells recognize invasions and make NEW antibodies without any dabbling from your God. How they can possibly do so without thought is beyond me. And still we wait to hear exactly what your God’s “instructions” consist of, if they do not specify what new XYZs are required to kill off the new invaders. Meanwhile, please note that millions of people have died from Covid-19. The system failed.

DAVID: Knowing self from non-self is built in.

What does “built in” mean, if it is not the cognitive faculty of recognition?

DAVID: I see you floundering to find objections to the idea our immune cells know exactly what to do each and every time. Fabulous design!!! No cell thought required.

They don’t know what to do each and every time. They have to work it out! Why do you think people fall ill or even die before the process produces the new antibodies to fight off the new invaders? “I see you floundering” to find objections to the idea that if your God has not preprogrammed or dabbled specific antibodies to counter specific invaders, then the only possibility left is that (if he exists) he has given cells the ABILITY to work out how to do it themselves – and that requires thought. (Not, of course, to be confused or compared with human thought.) In your own words, referring to a baby: “The rest of his life his cells are able to make an entire library of antibodies to all that come along.” You have agreed that the cells make the library without "instructions" from your God, in which case they must autonomously compile each volume as and when it is needed.