Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, February 19, 2022, 07:32 (1006 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: My theory is an amalgam of sources. ID gives me the design backing. Adler adds humans as an endpoint.

dhw: We needn’t dwell on the now defunct theory that humans were your God’s one and only purpose, which received backing from nobody, but we are still left with your theory that all cellular behaviour is automatic and predetermined by God’s instructions. This is tantamount to saying that all of evolution is dictated by God’s instructions. It’s another major issue, since it leads us back to the “facetious “ question on the thread concerning your theory of evolution.

DAVID: Why can't you accept the idea that God speciates, even from your iffy God? Evolution needs a designer, and to that extent, a designing mind is necessary. We won't call it God to proceed.

If God exists, I have no objection to any of this. My objections are to the theory that he designed every species, every solution, every lifestyle, every natural wonder in the history of life, and did so in anticipation of future conditions, either through a 3.8-billion-year-old programme or through ad hoc intervention to manipulate every change. You yourself have given us the example of Cambrian oxygen, which must have existed BEFORE the new species that depended on it, and you regard my questions about how the preprogramming or the dabbling actually work as “facetious”, which I can only take to mean that you find your own theory too far-fetched even to be considered! So let me ask you in turn: why can’t you accept the idea that your God, who you are sure enjoys creating and is interested in what he creates, might just possibly have designed the mechanisms which enable cells/cell communities to design their own methods of adjusting to or exploiting different conditions? After all, humans have the freedom to make their own decisions, and the unpredictability resulting from such freedom would surely be more interesting for God than watching automatons doing exactly what he knows they will do. And your God could still do an occasional dabble if he felt like it. Just an unprovable theory, like your own. I have others, as you know.

dhw: […] if the species had been designed before the oxygen was there, it could not have survived. I maintain that this principle applies to all speciation. Changes first, and speciation is in response to those changes. This argument removes your objection that cells can’t design for the future, because cells don’t do so – they design responses to present conditions. But of course so long as those conditions continue unchanged, the new species will have a future (i.e. will survive).

DAVID:Don't you realize or recognize your return to pure Darwinism? Oxygen is simply an element required to be present for further evolution to occur. We are discussing how biological organisms can be evolved, so physical conditions must allow evolution, but do not drive evolution.

You seem to think that the very mention of the word ”Darwin” is enough to remove any opposition to your own theories. You claim that cells can’t foresee the future. I agree. They respond to the present. You claim that your God speciates in anticipation of future conditions. The oxygen argument shows clearly that even if he did design the new species, the new conditions had to precede the new species! Of course oxygen did not “drive” evolution. There couldn’t be any evolution if there were no organisms around to use it, or if the organisms didn’t have the means to adapt to or exploit the new conditions. And why would an organism try to adapt to new conditions? Because it wants to survive! You have agreed that organismal changes are designed to “improve chances of survival”. That is the purpose of the changes, even if your God designed them directly. So: 1) cells do not have crystal balls; 2) cells do not require crystal balls because they respond to their present conditions; 3) when conditions change (and not before conditions change) cells/cell communities adapt or innovate in order to improve their chances of survival. 4) The mechanism for adaptation and innovation may have been designed by your God. Forgetting your prejudice against anything that might remind us of Darwin, please explain why you find this theory untenable.

Immunity system explaining B cells

dhw: The scientists you quote make no reference whatsoever to the question of HOW cells know what to do.

DAVID: Yes they do, giving an answer you seem to hate: information in their genome drives all living cell activity. Information from a designing mind.

dhw: We are not talking about “information”, but even if we were, do all the scientists you know say that the information came from a "designing mind"? We are actually talking specifically about instructions, and so my question is: do all the scientists you know tell us that all cellular behaviour is governed by God’s instructions?

DAVID: Simply, yes! Among all IDers. But I constantly present articles from others who have no reason to discuss a designer.

So all ID-ers believe God issued instructions for all cellular behaviour, though they never mention God, but it’s presumably possible that there are other scientists who don’t believe this, only they don’t count because you don’t know them. Got it!