Return to David's theory of evolution PARTS 1 & 2 (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, January 13, 2022, 09:56 (827 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: If the mechanism is not already there, it couldn't respond to new uses.

dhw: Precisely. It is the mechanism which is in place, and it responds to new uses. Species do not arrive in advance of changing conditions but in response to them.

DAVID: All species we know modify to fit changes.

No they don’t. Most of them died out. But if they survive, they have done so by RESPONDING to changing conditions.

DAVID: Speciation itself is our debate. I choose God designing.

Even if your God does the designing, you have agreed that he does not design new species in advance of changing conditions. The oxygen must already be present for him to produce the new species which requires the oxygen.

dhw: Just as it is in my scenario, the cells do not have to plan for the future: the changes are made once the new conditions are in place.

DAVID: Designing complexity requires deep mentation, which your cells cannot possibly do. They can create tiny modifications, no more.

Back to your prejudice as a way of dodging the issue we are debating, which is your theory that your God creates new species IN ANTICIPATION of changing conditions, although you have now agreed that the changes in conditions must precede the new species.

dhw: …what exists in advance can only be the MECHANISM which makes new changes when conditions require or allow them – not in advance of the change in conditions.

DAVID: The MECHANISM is God working is stepwise evolutionary fashion!

dhw: I’d like to follow up on this astonishing idea. I have proposed that the mechanism that makes new changes when new conditions require or allow them is the flexible, intelligent cell. I don’t think you will disagree that every change requires changes to the cells of every individual organism that makes up the new species.

DAVID: Some cells are changed, some new parts with news cells are created, but most use biochemical processes developed long ago in advance.

Agreed. If cells are intelligent, they would have been using the same methods right from the start: working out what to do with themselves under changing conditions. Thank you also for confirming that speciation depends on new parts and cells and changing use of old cells – finally knocking on the head your claim that evolutionary advances are “simply” a matter of losing genes. (See “More miscellany”.)

dhw: Are you now offering us a ubiquitous God who is actually inside the cells of each individual? If so, what an interesting idea that is. After all, you could hardly have anything more intelligent than your God.

DAVID: God works with the genome of germ stem cells to design the new. He doesn't live there.

Ah well, bang goes your theory that God is a mechanism. He’s an outsider who pops in to conduct countless operations in order to make the changes he didn’t preprogramme 3.8 billion years ago.

You continue to try and prove that your God changes organisms in advance of new requirements by flogging your example of the brain:

DAVID: Yes, our giant brain didn't change much (stasis) until we learned to use it. It obviously appeared in anticipation of future use.

We didn’t “learn to use it”. We used it, just as our ancestors did. And when they came up with new ideas, their brains expanded. When we came up with new ideas, our brains complexified, as they continue to do even today.

DAVID: No new brain required as we civilized and developed libraries of knowledge to stuff into it by complexifing with a pre-prepared mechanism to help.

Agreed. The “pre-prepared” mechanism was that of complexification, which – we agree – was also present in the brains of our ancestors, as was the mechanism enabling expansion. Since you clearly do not believe that your God keeps popping in to create every new complexification, may I suggest that you believe he created the mechanism for expansion and complexification way back at the very beginning, since the very first cells must have contained the mechanism which eventually led to the expansion and complexification of life forms as evolution developed. I need hardly tell you that the mechanism might be the flexibility and intelligence of the cell.

dhw: What I deny is your theory that your God only wanted to design humans plus our food, and therefore designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and foods, the majority of which had no connection with humans. THAT is what is illogical, you admit it, can’t explain it, and so you continue to edit out all the parts of your theory that make it illogical!

DAVID: Your bolds are constantly illogical.

Of course they are. It is totally illogical for an all-powerful God with one purpose (humans plus food) to deliberately create countless life forms and foods that had no connection with his one purpose. That is why you constantly dodge the issue.