More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, June 18, 2024, 11:26 (102 days ago) @ David Turell

Oxidation

dhw: Do you think all the “teeter totterings” of environmental conditions such as oxidation, which dictated what species could/couldn’t survive, were deliberately designed by him so that he could create and then cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with his one and only purpose, or that he had to “adjust” to them because they were beyond his control?

DAVID: I repeat: God uses an evolutionary process. Single algae are beyond His individual control.

dhw: Why are you repeating it instead of answering my question, now bolded?

DAVID: I did answer it obviously beyond your willingness to understand. Evolution is teeter-totterings of stepwise evolution.

Do you think your God specifically designed every teeter-tottering in the environmental conditions that determined survival/non-survival, or do you think he had to “adjust” to them because they were beyond his control?

bacteria use bacteriophages in warfare (now “overblown Darwin-speak”)

DAVID: I'm glad you vented your rage. You still don't understand I rage against Darwinists misuse of words and his theory, not himself.

dhw: There is no “rage”. I am calmly pointing out that the statement “evolution repeats itself”, just like the statement “evolution maintains the diversity of tailocin variants”, simply states what happens in the course of evolution. I see no reason why you should vent your anti-Darwinist rage by describing a straightforward statement of fact as “phony, overblown Darwin-speak propaganda.”

No reason offered.

dhw: Nor do I accept the word “undefendable” in your statement that “Darwinists constantly defend his undefendable theory”, which I would regard as “overblown anti-Darwin-speak propaganda”, since even you accept the theories of common descent and of nature selecting those organs/organisms that are useful in the “warfare” for survival.

DAVID: Designed common descent will look like Darwin's 'natural' common descent.

“Common descent” means that living organisms have developed from earlier ancestral forms, whether God did it, chance did it, or cellular intelligence (possibly designed by God) did it.

Our heart differs from that of the great apes

DAVID: Chicken and egg problem: one cannot run at high speed unless one has the heart for it to begin with.

dhw: So you think your God popped in and enlarged the hearts of a group of pre-sapiens with the great news that now they could run faster. I suggest that the heart and all other cell communities (organs/organisms) RESPOND to demands (and opportunities), as opposed to them being changed in ANTICIPATION of demands (and opportunities). And I suggest that this principle underlies the whole history of evolution.

DAVID: My theory of evolution is not Godless as yours is. God designed in anticipation of use.

dhw: Please stop this constant distortion. The alternative theories I offer ALWAYS allow for the possibility of God as the designer. I am an agnostic. A God who endows his creations with the ability to change in response to new conditions is just as much a God as one who looks into his crystal ball and then dashes around to perform operations that will prepare his 0.1% of chosen species for conditions which do not yet exist. And I must confess, I find the latter considerably less feasible than the former.

DAVID: Design assumes God designs for future needs. The design of the human heart shows this. Ancestors of Lucy used running as a survival skill.

Of course once something has been designed it will be used in the future. The question is whether the designs are a response to current needs (the heart/brain complexifies as it adjusts to new requirements), or occurs in anticipation of a requirement that does not yet exist (your God looks into his crystal ball, and performs the operation in advance of need). I find the latter considerably less feasible than the former – but to each his own.