Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing: cognition (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 27, 2021, 11:54 (909 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I view evolution as common design in which Darwin claimed was common descent looks like much the same.

dhw: You have previously expressed your belief in common descent, with a continuous line from bacteria to humans, except for the Cambrian, which produced new species without any precursors. And you think we are descended from the latter, so there’s no continuous line from bacteria to humans. Please explain the contradiction. See later for “common design”.

DAVID: The continuity is in the biochemical processes creating life present in the first Archaea.

ALL forms of life are the result of biochemical processes, but (a) that does not mean that all forms of life were “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” and their food! And (b) you have not explained the above contradiction.

Immunity system complexity
DAVID: The odds for intelligent or looking intelligent are still 50/50, and only one mechanism is the real one.

dhw: Do you now agree that the theory is NOT confined to past literature, that cognition does NOT mean automaticity, and that there is a major distinction between intelligent decision-making and the automatic implementation of decisions? Even your 50/50 should mean that the theory of cellular intelligence should at least be taken just as seriously as your own theories.

DAVID: I agree. I have my view and you yours. One is correct. I'll stay with mine.

Thank you. From now on I trust you will cease to claim that cellular intelligence is an outdated theory, that cognition means automaticity, and that the automatic implementation of decisions somehow proves that the decisions themselves are automatic.

Common design
QUOTE: "To say that similarities prove common descent ignores a logical possibility: that common features may instead be due to a common design strategy.”

dhw: Why instead? If God exists, and if – as you believe – he designed every species, then it would make perfect sense for him to use the same design strategy as he created the vast bush of life forms, most of which had no connection with humans. It also makes perfect sense for intelligent cells to build on the features already developed by their predecessors.

DAVID: Today's researchers always discover fixed molecular processes and never mention intelligence but do accept information exists.

See “Transposons” on the theodicy thread for a painful rebuttal of this very silly claim.

QUOTE: "Neo-Darwinism led evolutionists to assume that most of our DNA would prove to be junk left over from evolution's trial-and-error process [etc.]

dhw: Dealt with over and over again: Darwin’s principle of natural selection explains why what is useful is preserved.

DAVID: Except junk meant random for 50 years, thus was discarded random mutations supporting Darwin.

Do you or don’t you accept the argument that useful DNA confirms the process of natural selection, as above?

dhw: Your problem is the two gross contradictions at the start of this post. [See below]

DAVID: Continuity of biological processes is the answer.

As above: all life entails biological processes, but that does not mean all life serves the purpose of fulfilling your God’s alleged single goal of producing humans, and it does not explain how humans can be descended from bacteria if they are descended from life forms which your God created de novo, i.e. without any precursors.

DAVID: dhw's illogical complaint that God didn't use precursors at the Cambrian gap is out the window.

dhw: It is you who insisted that God didn’t use precursors!!!!!!! That is why in the past, you have done nothing but emphasize the gaps! I have followed Darwin in proposing that the gaps are in the fossil record, but I have added the possibility suggested by Shapiro that intelligent cells are capable of the major innovations that lead to speciation. If your God can add new bits and pieces to existing bits and pieces, then I propose (theistic version) that he can also invent a mechanism which can do the same.

DAVID: Again useless secondhand deigning. The gaps are in form not life's processes.

Of course the gaps are in form. How does that explain your two gross contradictions? And since you believe that your God created humans, do you consider all human designs to be useless and secondhand? If in your theology your God gave us the autonomous power of design, why do you denigrate design by autonomous cells if he gave them the same autonomous ability as he gave us?

DAVID: Same reliance on a misinterpretation of automatic processes in cells. ID and the appearance of intelligence are two sides of the same coin.

Off you go again, ignoring the difference between automatic implementation of decisions and the so far unexplained, mysterious process which leads to the decisions and which some scientists both past and present attribute to cognitive intelligence. But I agree that direct design by God and direct design by cells are two sides of the same coin. All the more reason why you should not pretend that you know your own 50/50 theory is correct.