More "miscellany" PART ONE (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 23, 2022, 13:55 (491 days ago) @ David Turell

PART ONE

DAVID: Nothing in God's form of evolution is superfluous. You agree all is there for God's reasons. Humans and food are two purposes. God uses evolution for all of His creative processes. Once again you make God look stupid for using evolution.

dhw: If God exists, we agree that he has used evolution for his purposes! For the umpteenth time, what other purposes are you talking about for his “creative processes”? It is YOU who make him look stupid for deliberately designing countless life forms and foods that had no connection with the only purpose you allow him (sapiens plus food)!

DAVID: The 'countless forms' are today's food!!! Stop slicing up evolution as disconnected.

The countless dead ends, as you have repeatedly acknowledged, are the life forms that did NOT lead to today’s food! They formed the ecoysystems of the past which were only for the past. Today’s food forms are descended from those branches of evolution that were not dead ends. Please stop dodging!

Evolution: problems for Darwin

DAVID: But my theory fits all your objections: all evolutions must have necessary dead ends...

Yet again: we only know of one evolution of life. See the “David’s theory thread”.

DAVID: ...and all life must have food at all evolutionary stages. I only admit I am not privy to God's thoughts.

Of course all life must have food, but that does not mean all past lives and foods were designed as necessary preparations for us and our food! This endless dodging is the reason why our discussion never ends. None of us are privy to God’s thoughts (if he exists) and so why, oh why do you keep insisting that the irrational thoughts you impose on him ARE his thoughts?

How roots find water

dhw: I have agreed that “design is required”, but I don’t know what you mean by “spontaneous mutations”. I propose that plants, just like animals, are composed of intelligent cells. They don’t “wait” for changes. They try to find solutions to new problems. Many will fail and die (hence all levels of extinction), but some are clever enough to design their way out of trouble. An “enormous amount of time” is relative. Even your God – who should have found it all easy-peasy since he designs all problems and all solutions – managed to drag out some of his designs over millions of years!

DAVID: Back to speciation by intelligent cells. The Nobel prize awaits.

dhw: Give it to Shapiro. Why don’t you consider the logic of the above arguments, instead of just sneering? […] since it explains what you cannot explain, and since even you grant that it has a 50/50 chance of being true, you do yourself no favours by ignoring the logic of the proposal I have offered above.

DAVID: My view is just as valid as yours from the viewpoint that we look at cells from outside.

dhw: Yes, that’s your 50/50. So why do you insist on a 100% no?

DAVID: I can make decisions to pick a side, which I believe is correct. You've picked your side of brilliant intelligent cells, remember?

I keep emphasizing that it is a theory, but I also point out to you how it explains many of the problems which you raise. Instead of responding to the arguments, you merely repeat your rejection of the basic premise. An atheistic equivalent would be if you presented your perfectly rational argument for design and hence a designer God, and I responded to the argument by saying 50/50, but there is no designer God. Please respond to the logic of the arguments.

Primordial enhancers

DAVID: In a heat cell response from the very first cells:
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-primordial-super-enhancers-early-snapshot-mechanisms.html

QUOTE: "This is the first time these condensates have been seen in a non-eukaryotic species, demonstrating that these structures are very ancient, dating back to a very early common ancestor and conserved across species. "This means that cells have been doing this high-level gene expression for a billion years," said Pincus.

DAVID: the fact that this mechanism existed at the start of life strongly support design theory in that it is a design prepared for future use. A wise designer will set the process up this way.

There is a discrepancy here, as the site itself also calls it “the dawn of life”, but an early common ancestor a billion years ago is not the dawn of life. However, to take up your own point, of course if God exists he would have set up the early cellular mechanisms for future use. That encapsulates the whole theory of evolution with or without God: the first cells evolved into all subsequent species. But that is a very different theory from yours, which is that every future use was specially designed in advance of the changing conditions that required or allowed for new uses!


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