Cellular intelligence (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, March 18, 2022, 09:54 (979 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Why is it so important to you that God allows organisms to self-design? How does that help you solve the issue of whether God exists? I'll add an article today about directed mutation which follows on a previous entry.

dhw: This has nothing to do with the question of God’s existence! IF he exists, I’d like to know what our world might reveal of his possible nature, purpose and method. You now appear to believe that your God deliberately created a system of war and aggression rather than a pacifistic, pastoral system. And yet I thought you believed he was a kind God. You reject the possibility of an interesting free-for-all, so please tell us why you think he wanted war.

DAVID: Total sidestep of my direct question. Meanwhile, here is your “added article”:

I have explained why self-design is important to me: if God exists, I’d like to know his purpose and method. Meanwhile, please answer my own question.
The added article supported the case for non-random mutation.

dhw: This has nothing to do with God’s deliberate creation of life as “a constant war to survive by eating”, but I’m delighted to see such support for my theory. Thank you. (I agree that it doesn’t necessarily extend to innovations. That is why we only have a theory and not a fact.)

DAVID: It shows more design at work. Another nail in Darwinism.

And a neat way of dodging the “war” issue. Please tell us why you think your God wanted a constant war of survival between his creations.

Carnivorous plants

DAVID: The response is instantaneous, but antibody production takes a little time. Killer immune cells are immediately active.

dhw: An instantaneous response that fails to kill the invader is not going to add a new volume to the library. The need to produce new antibodies makes it abundantly clear that the disease and the protection do NOT arrive simultaneously!

DAVID: Neutrophils are spontaneous first responders.

How does that come to mean that any failure to kill the invader denotes the simultaneous presence of disease and cure?

BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER CONTROLS

DAVID: Must be designed all at once at the time the first real brains appeared, or brained life would not have survived.

dhw: It's possible that just like all other organs and organisms, they were subjected to toxins and antigens, and in what you call “the constant war to survive by eating”, in due course they developed their own forms of protection. No doubt many would have died before the cells were able to design this means of survival. Again, the attack would have preceded development of the defence. Just a theory.

DAVID: More just-so wooliness.

No more just-so and woolly than your theory that an unknown and sourceless conscious being preprogrammed all these processes 3.8 billion years ago, or alternatively kept popping in to deliver new instructions, give courses, or perform operations. (If that being exists, I would regard the process as less woolly if he simply endowed all organisms with the ability to design their own forms of attack and defence.)

Bird migration

DAVID: Birds use God-given senses, and you carefully avoided the main point of the origin of the decision to migrate enormous distances.

dhw: If God exists, we also use God-given senses in order to make our decisions about where to go and how to get there. You just can’t imagine that birds might observe and learn and calibrate and recognize places without your God preprogramming them or planting a self-driving sat nav in their brains...I expect millions died in the search, but once a flock had found a sunny spot – no matter how far away – that became the destination for all their descendants. What’s your theory?

DAVID: God. Another just-so wooliness theory. we are considering thousands of miles just to find a spot.

So why is it OK for God to choose a spot thousands of miles away, but just-so woolly if birds do it?

How cells communicate

DAVID: dhw how do cells exchange design ideas with these molecular signals?

dhw: These molecular signals are their language. If they can notify each other of threats, why should they not be able to notify each other of means to counter the threats, and of means to threaten others in what you call “the constant war to survive by eating”?

DAVID: You have not described the ability to think to accomplish complex design in your favored cell committees.

And as usual you have ignored my question. As I said in my response to the article supporting cellular intelligence: I agree that it doesn’t necessarily extend to innovations. That is why we only have a theory and not a fact.