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

by dhw, Friday, July 01, 2022, 10:46 (665 days ago) @ David Turell

Once again I have juxtaposed posts in order to give coherence to the different points of disagreement between David and myself. It’s all repetition, but perhaps eventually something positive may emerge from these discussions, and that is the hope that gave rise to this website in the first place.

Agnosticism
DAVID: Which brings you back to my question in the other thread: if it is either design or intelligent cells from God, why deny God?

dhw: After all these years, you still haven’t understood the meaning of agnosticism. Originally it referred to the impossibility of knowing whether God exists or not, but many of us prefer to say we cannot decide whether there is a God or not. That means, to use your favourite odds, 50/50. Atheists deny God. The choice of explanation for the source of life is between God(s) and chance.

DAVID: And you think both are equal possibilities.

I find both of them equally difficult to believe in, but since one of them must be true, I neither deny nor accept either of them. But I have just as much right to speculate on the possible nature, purposes and methods of a possible God as you do, and I see no justification whatsoever in your repeated suggestion that somehow my agnosticism lends validity to your illogical combination of evolutionary theories, or invalidates my own logical alternatives.

Cellular intelligence

DAVID: I do not think the intelligent cell theory is at all possible!!! And you know it. The appearance of the cells from the outside has a 50/50 probability of cause! I've picked my 50% side of the equation.

dhw: If you reject a 50% possibility, your rejection of the theory can only be the result of sheer prejudice.

DAVID: Not prejudice but a deep knowledge of the biochemistry of life. I feel I have the knowledge to make an informed choice, based on real evidence.

dhw: 50/50 probability does not mean 100% no. And folk like Shapiro, McClintock, Margulis, Buehler and many others may, I suggest, also have/have had a deep knowledge of the biochemistry of life. Here is a 1-minute video as an example based on our old friend slime mould:

Slime mould studied by Japanese scientists show cellular intelligence ...
https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=CGClwVm-D4w

DAVID: I presented slime mold years ago, Why return? We disagreed then and do it now again. The mold responds to stimuli with programmed intelligent responses. It is not innately intelligent.

It is absurd to say that my 50/50 for and against God = denial of God, and it is equally absurd for you to give odds of 50/50 for and against cellular intelligence and then say you “deny” the theory. The slime mould video is just another example of the fact that you are not the only person with a “deep knowledge of the biochemistry of life”, and you cannot expect me to accept your assumption that you know more than some scientists who have spent a lifetime studying the biochemistry of life and disagree with you.

David’s theory of evolution

DAVID: How evolution occurs is obviously large changes in DNA, and our debate is who or what controls those changes, not my theories about God wishing to create us.

dhw: Our debate is indeed over who or what controls these changes, and how they are achieved. Hence your theory that your God controls them, that he does so for the sole purpose of designing sapiens plus food, and in order to do this, he designs countless life forms (plus econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders), the vast majority of which have no connection with sapiens plus food.This combination of theories “makes sense only to God”.

DAVID: It also makes sense to me that all of this is a result of God's activity, created by His own reasoning, and thus "makes [full] sense only to God".

All of what? If God exists, then of course the history of life on Earth is a result of his activity. That makes sense to all of us (given the “if”). The history that we know is of countless life forms, econiches etc. And since the majority of these had no connection with sapiens and our food, it makes no sense to theorize that all of them were preparation for and an “absolute requirement” for sapiens and our food.

(Continued in Part Two)