More "miscellany" (General)

by dhw, Friday, April 15, 2022, 12:14 (714 days ago) @ David Turell

SHAPIRO

DAVID: God's instructions tell cells directly what to do. Only bacteria edit….

dhw: Perhaps you should tell us what you mean by “edit”. I understand it as making changes, which in the case of bacteria would mean adaptation to changing conditions – the same as every other life form that adapts.

DAVID: Shapiro found bacteria edit (change) DNA. You know that. Our cells do not.

If “edit” means bacteria autonomously make the changes necessary for adaptation, why couldn’t your God have given the same autonomy to the multicellular organisms that descended from them?

Bacterial stress protection
DAVID: bacteria started life long before oxygen was present in any significant amount, so the first very simple bacteria did not require this protection, which was then added later.

So does this confirm the process whereby bacteria autonomously adapt to new conditions, whereas multicellular organisms need God’s instructions?

DAVID: Note they do not speciate! […]

dhw: But I thought you thought all species (except the “de novo” Cambrians) were descended from bacteria. This could only mean that although some bacteria remained unchanged, others combined and cooperated to create new forms.

DAVID: God speciates. The bold is your hopeful belief system to avoid God.

dhw: It’s not “hopeful” and it doesn’t avoid God. If you think all species are descended from bacteria (apart from the Cambrians), then presumably you think the same process of combining and cooperating took place, but your God engineered it directly instead of giving bacteria the intelligence to do it themselves. […]

DAVID: God designs directly, creates all speciation. Created simple biochemistry to start life and creates jumps (gaps) in phenotypical forms when desired (Cambrian) all connected evolution.

So do you or do you not believe that – apart from the species with no precursors from which we are descended and which therefore refute the theory of common descent and hence the notion of “connected” species – ordinary speciation involves a combining and cooperation of cells that is engineered by your God?

STEM CELLS

dhw: With adaptations and innovations, there has to be some sort of cellular reconstruction or new construction. Clearly innovation requires cells that can actually perform new functions, and that is why I thought stem cells would fit the bill.

DAVID: You are going too far. Accept first to have a new species, changes must occur in germ cells. As for modification by epigenetics, cells methylate DNA. Here stem cells can be recruited to do changes.

Thank you. Still asking and not theorizing: if a leg becomes a flipper, what cells change in what order?

Missing temporal lobe
QUOTE: “To compensate, her brain had developed a language network in the right side of her brain that allowed her to communicate normally.

DAVID: a great example of brain plasticity

I can’t help feeling that the “plasticity” consists in the autonomous ability of cells to make their own adjustments in response to new conditions. I can’t imagine your God issuing instructions 3.8 billion years ago, or stepping in to operate. (This autonomous ability would be his invention, if he exists.)

Fungal intelligence
QUOTE: “In the meantime, we can enjoy the remarkable intelligence displayed in fungi."

Don’t you just love the way scientist after scientist confirms the intelligence of cells in humans, animals, plants and even fungi?


Einstein
DAVID: “What I cannot explain is why God chose evolution over direct creation. Why can’t you accept that explanation?

DAVID: Your analysis of me is amazingly confused. Adler and I see humans as a goal.

But you keep saying humans plus food were THE goal, not A goal, and your God specially designed all the life forms and foods that did not lead to humans plus food, and you don’t know why he didn’t fulfil his goal directly.

DAVID: Adler uses it to prove God.

Irrelevant since this discussion concerns the purpose, method and nature of a possible God.

DAVID: The history of evolution is how God did it. I fully accept God's produced history. All you do is illogically second guess God.

But you present an illogical interpretation of the history and how God did it, and I am supposed to accept your inability to explain it as an explanation! You have never claimed that my alternative theories are illogical.

How to think about science and God.
QUOTE: He understood that there is room in our lives for both science and faith, if that is the choice we make. Science does not have an interest in taking faith away from people." (David’s bold)

DAVID: I am that scientist/author. The difference is I have a great store of scientific knowledge and use it to explain how I think God did His work in producing us and our reality.

What a lovely article! I think it would appeal to all of us agnostics as well as to all believers. I have great respect for your scientific knowledge and your books. However, that does not help much when you expect me to take your inability to explain a theory as evidence that the theory “makes perfect sense”.


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