Return to David's theory of evolution PART 1 (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, April 11, 2022, 15:37 (955 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Not what I wrote. Purpose primary, emotional responses secondary.

dhw:I proposed that his emotional responses might indicate his purpose, and all I asked was that you should accept that possibility. So what was the possibility you accepted?

I do not think God considers His eventual reactions to His creations beforehand. He works well in advance. I am sure humans were on His mind as He created the BB.

God's choice of war over peace

dhw: […]I wonder why, according to you, your "kind" God would deliberately choose war over peace.

DAVID: It is you who suggest God could have made a different system, as if He had choices. I think He devised a system from scratch consciously making choices and came up with the best in His view.

dhw: If he consciously made choices, then he obviously had a choice, i.e. he could have made a different system!

But that is not the system we have. Doesn't trouble me. I use the Jewish approach: He gave us enough accepting His choices.

Transferred from “trilobites”:

DAVID: The polar bears must eat seals. Where are the veggies? Your imagined world was not what happened. My approach is much more reasonable

dhw: Of course it’s not what happened. That is the whole point of this discussion! Why do you think your God chose to design a world of bloody warfare when, being all-powerful, he could have chosen to design a world of peaceful cooperation? […] I suggest that he created what he wanted to create (the free-for-all), as opposed to his having to incorporate errors which he didn’t want and tried, sometimes in vain, to correct because, as bolded, it was the only way possible.

DAVID: God did not incorporate errors. A world of peaceful cooperation most likely in God's eyes could not work. (Darwin goes out the window, no fighting for survival, is a byproduct of your theory.) The free-for-all has nothing to do with errors in a high speed metabolism of life's molecules.

dhw:Of course Darwin goes out of the window! Like both of us, he looks at the world as it is. But you keep getting yourself in an almighty tangle over whether your God had a choice or not. If God exists, the bodily system he designed contained the potential for errors, and the survival system he designed depended on bloody warfare. These facts raise questions about his possible nature (hence the subject of theodicy). I have offered a possible explanation – a “free-for-all”. So far, I have found your objections to be based not on logic but on your subjective views of your God’s nature and purpose, while your own ideas seem to me to be riddled with contradictions. The battle continues!

As above God made choices I accept. Our biochemical system is amazing. As is life appearing out of a material universe. I have no contradictions, as you see them arising from your contorted view of what God should be.

Shapiro

DAVID: Shapiro did not extrapolate. He simply proposed a possible mechanism for speciation.

dhw: You keep moaning that he extrapolated his theory of evolution from his study of bacteria! But yes indeed, he proposed cellular intelligence as the mechanism for speciation. Once again, I'm pleased you accept that bacteria are intelligent and am surprised that you think the cell communities which evolved from them are not intelligent.

DAVID: You forget God designed bacteria. They run on His programs in DNA. He gave them editing for protection living on their own to adapt to challenges.

You wrote that Shapiro’s theory was based on “bacteria editing their DNA” and he “has only proved bacteria and none else have this ability”. I assumed you meant your God had given them the ability (i.e. the intelligence) to edit their own DNA. Now you say they run on his programmes, but that is what you say of every other cell and cell community. So did he give them this autonomous ability or not, and if he did, why couldn’t he have given the same ability to their descendants?

dhw: I don’t recall adding that every cell was “immensely intelligent”. Please identify the quote.

DAVID: I can't find your quotes. Neil gave you that ability.

dhw;No, he didn’t. I have learned from experience that you frequently contradict yourself, and so I keep a record of statements which I suspect you will later try to disown. There is simply no point in gratuitously inserting the word “immensely” as you have done. It is enough to stick to Shapiro’s own list of attributes.

Your cell committees are given enormous tasks to accomplish. Don't deny it.

dhw: I'm not sure about germ cells being "the only extension". What about stem cells, which we know can change their forms and functions? I'd have thought these would be crucial to evolutionary innovation.

DAVID: […] Germ cells carry the DNA combined in a new individual. For a completely new individual, the DNA changes must be there.

dhw: Agreed. But don’t you think it is of vital significance for evolution that some cells (i.e. stem cells) are able to change their form and function?

Any existing stem cells are the result of previous speciation. They help run embryology as one item.