Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Sunday, October 10, 2021, 09:42 (1138 days ago) @ David Turell

Survival
dhw: I asked if you thought your God changed pre-whale legs into flippers in order to improve their chances of survival. You said he did. This means you think your God does his dabbles (speciation) in order to improve an organism’s chances of survival. It does not mean that survival has nothing to do with the appearance of new species.

DAVID: Pure quibble. Survival is not the driver of evolution is my only point.

It is not your only point. On Monday 27 September you wrote: “Survival has nothing to do with the appearance of new species.” That is what I object to, since you yourself believe that your God provides organisms with new features in order to improve their chances of survival.

Brain cells
QUOTE: “We’re going to have to learn what all these cell types are and try to figure out how they all work together.”

dhw: […] Our cell communities provide an admirable example of how well things CAN work, but also of how any breakdown in cooperation, or any interference from outside, can result in catastrophe. I would also apply these observations to the problem of theodicy which is so troubling to believers. From cells to nations, your God has provided the same formula: “I’ve given you the means. Now it’s up to you how you use them.”

DAVID: And we've done that, and cells carefully follow His instructions.

dhw: What instructions do they carefully follow when they fall ill or die?

DAVID: Apoptosis and death is built in.

But you keep telling us (under “Theodicy”) that the system makes its own uncontrollable mistakes, and your God has tried hard to provide countermeasures, though he doesn’t always succeed.

Crocodiles change skull forms
DAVID: […] to call this evolution is ridiculous. It is the same species adapting epigenetically as time and environment require. Just another example of having to interpret the constant propaganda protecting the Darwin paradigm.

dhw: For a change, I agree with you. This is where Darwin himself and his followers play around with the term “species”. Such minor adaptations only lead to variations, not to completely different life forms. Where you and I disagree is on the potential of the mechanism that produces variations: if the cells can reorganize themselves autonomously in this minor manner (I presume you agree they are not preprogrammed to do so and your God does not do a dabble), then perhaps they are also capable of major reorganization when required or allowed to do so by major changes in the environment.

DAVID: Your hopeful bold is simply hope. Since Darwin's time, no evidence.

And what evidence is there that instead of giving cells autonomous intelligence, your God devised a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every single innovation, or came along and did a dabble for those he hadn’t programmed. If the one is “simply hope”, then so is the other.