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

by dhw, Tuesday, April 05, 2022, 10:29 (961 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I am convinced God is not doing it out of self-interest. That is all part of my belief system.

dhw: And yet at one time you were sure he enjoyed creating and was interested in his creations. Being “convinced” is not, I’m afraid, much of an argument.

DAVID: You are again using my guesses as fact. Belief is convinced!!! You are outside looking in.

Of course none of our guesses are fact – including the existence of God. But since you have guessed that your God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, I don’t see how you can then guess that he can’t possibly do his creating because he enjoys creating something that interests him.

DAVID: Your view of my theistic belief system is illogical. I'll stick with Adler while you stick with Shapiro.

Adler doesn’t cover your illogical theory of evolution, and Shapiro does not even mention God. Stop dodging.

God's choice of war over peace

DAVID: God designed a mixture. Free-living organisms have a choice with free will. God would have to pacific everyone in you scheme. It may be that God realized a freedom to chose energy sources might allow more adequate intake of energy. You ignore how vital that is.

Yes, we have a mixture. I’m delighted that you now accept the possibility that he gave organisms the freedom to choose their energy sources – as opposed to his designing them all and finding that they made “errors” which he could not always control. Thank you. I would question whether the freedom you have so long denied was necessary for “a more adequate intake of energy”, especially since it often means one organism having all its energy taken away by another in your God's specially designed "constant war to survive by eating". Maybe he had another reason for the free-for-all.

Ecosystem importance

DAVID: Your usual illogical splitting of evolution into unconnected eras. Evolution is progressive with each new stage following from the last.

But every single new stage of every single new species and econiche did not lead only to humans and our food, though you say humans and our food were your God’s only purpose. Stop dodging!

Shapiro
dhw: He refers to cells in general, not just bacteria, and I quoted his own words, e.g. “Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modificaton and cell fusions.” I have neither inflated nor abused his theory. By confining it to bacteria, you have deflated and abused it yourself. Ts ts! grim

DAVID: Wake up. His entire research career was on bacteria!! From that great work he theorized it can be applied to other entirely new cells (evolutionary novelty). If 'in general' applying it to a cause for speciation, it must mean germ cells can modify themselves. That is not seen, except methylation, so we are back to reviewing his work as limited to a theory as to how evolution might have advanced. He is not discussing how your 'cells' operate daily!!! Please remember the title of his book: Evolution. Stop extrapolating illogically.

Of course it’s his theory of evolution, since that was the subject of his book! Hence the quotation above. But that does not alter the fact that he believes in cellular intelligence! QUOTE: “Living cells and organisms are cognitive (sentient) entities that act and interact purposefully to ensure survival, growth and proliferation. They possess sensory, communication, information-processing and decision-making capabilities.” Do you really think he would wish to add a parenthesis: NB they are not intelligent when sensing, communicating, information-processing and decision-making in daily life?

Epigenetics

DAVID: It is obviously not a solution for the problem of understanding how speciation works. It appears to be related to very minor alterations.

Nobody knows how speciation works, but the snake example might help us. The environment makes legs a nuisance, but the sliding movement itself leads to further changes in the anatomy (as with whales swimming instead of walking). There can be no question about these changes eventually proving to be hereditary, and I would say this is how snakes became a new species. I think we would both agree that environment triggered what became very major alterations. You will say God dabbled. I would suggest that intelligent cells restructured themselves according to current needs.