More "miscellany" PARTS ONE & TWO (General)

by dhw, Thursday, December 15, 2022, 09:03 (470 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: A reactive God who depends on factors beyond his control (luck) does not seem to me to be a God who is in tight control.

DAVID: I believe local climate is not something God dabbles with. He is in tight control of evolution.

He is not in control of local climate, which changes the local environments that require or allow the evolutionary innovations which lead to new species. And he is not in control of which species survive and are to undergo evolutionary changes when the new conditions arise. But apparently his lack of control over local environmental conditions and over the survival of species means he is in tight control.

Pigeon brains

DAVID: Cells in multicellular organisms work automatically. Bacteria have special attributes of self actions.

dhw: That is your theory. You accused me of distorting Shapiro’s theory. I didn’t. Let’s drop this subject too, since it's just another example of your ignoring your own distortions.

DAVID: You do not distort Shapiro, You use his theory to extrapolate and make multicellular cells brilliant.

I do not “use” Shapiro’s theory to “extrapolate” - it IS his theory that cells are “brilliant” enough to do their own designing. Please stop pretending that the quotes do not mean what they say.

Intelligent octopuses

dhw: Do you also believe that octopus intelligence springs from a soul?

DAVID: In Jewish thought animals have their own form of soul. I don't reject it.

dhw: Do Jewish thinkers believe in an afterlife, and if so, do animals also have an afterlife? [...]

DAVID: No heaven, no hell. God will take care of us.

Does this mean that there’s an afterlife and we and our fellow animals will all live neither happily nor unhappily but sort of nothingly ever after? We might just as well be dead ever after! (And maybe we are.)

Giant aquatic arthropods 470mya

DAVID: this new find fits dhw's theory that there is much new that we will find. I agree. The Cambrian gap is here to stay, I believe.

dhw: I know your beliefs. Just like Dawkins, you believe that the future will confirm your rigid opinions!

DAVID: It has, so far. The new studies of cell function demand a designer in charge.

We were talking about new finds and the Cambrian gap.


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