More miscellany (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 26, 2024, 12:35 (148 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I am following Adler's instructions. My theology is 'true' for me.

dhw: That’s more like it. You are of course free to choose any theory you like, but please stop making such silly remarks as: “You don’t know how to think about God is true theological ways” when what you mean is I don’t know how to think about God in the illogical, self-contradictory, and even mocking way (“imperfect”, “inefficient” designer) you think about him.

DAVID: My theology tells me God chose an imperfect system perfectly, for His own reasons. With His omniscience, it was the proper correct choice.

May I suggest that a God who illogically chooses an imperfect and inefficient method to get what he wants is less likely than a God who logically chooses a perfect and efficient method to get what he wants (as in my alternative, theistic explanations of evolution).

Intelligence (and ants)

dhw: All decision-making is based on receiving information in whatever form, processing it, and finding a way to use it. Within a community, communication is another essential feature. Bearing these attributes in mind, do you agree that ants are intelligent?

DAVID: To a small degree.

dhw; How small is small? Would you agree that today’s article on chimp self-medication denotes autonomous intelligence?

DAVID: Yes.

See also the separate article on macaques.

Painted lady butterflies in South America

QUOTE: The butterflies could only have completed this flight using a strategy alternating between active flight, which is costly energetically, and gliding the wind. (David’s bold)

DAVID: A tiny brain makes aerodynamic adjustments to make the trip.

Very sweet, and one must admire the courage and intelligence of the first painted ladies to have made the crossing, using the forces of nature to enable them to explore what was then totally unknown territory.

God’s “challenge”

dhw: ...And what might have been his purpose for challenging us?

DAVID: Back to theodicy. The bad are side effects of the greater good.

Yes, yes, we know you think the sufferings of millions should be ignored in any discussion of theodicy. Now please tell us why you think your God wanted to “challenge” us by creating the bad problems for us to solve.

Giraffes

QUOTE: “Against the odds, over a period of 8 million years the genetic material in small gazelle-like Canthumerycids transformed by natural selection into modern long-legged, long-necked giraffes, Giraffa camelopardalis.”

dhw: Natural selection doesn’t explain the process, but Shapiro’s theory certainly does, whether or not your God designed the ability of cells to respond to new requirements.

DAVID: I'm sure God did it directly.

dhw: Do you mean that God created the giraffe “de novo”, without any ancestors?

DAVID: No. see: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/giraffes-evolved-long-necks-spurts-180956886

QUOTE: "If you could assemble all these fossil bits and pieces into a short film replaying giraffe evolution, you wouldn’t end up with the smooth transformation of a small-statured herbivore into a towering, checkered browser. There’d be starts and stops and side stories, the ending not being a goal but a happenstance."

DAVID: Obviously, God is action designing.

The headline is:
How the Giraffe Got Its Long Neck: It Happened in Spurts

So apparently God designs in starts and stops and spurts and ends up with a happenstance. Sounds like a God experimenting rather than a God with a fixed goal, don’t you think? Or a God who initiated a free-for-all.

Proper delivery of proteins

Cells constantly produce proteins with controlled delivery:

DAVID: this article raises the usual question. How does a blind natural process find exact protein components? What is more likely is a designer at work.

If we accept the theory that life began with single cells which had the ability not only to reproduce but also to make changes to themselves, it makes perfect sense that when they formed communities, they would increase the range of their abilities through cooperation with one another. None of the processes that have evolved over billions of years are “blind” – they are all the consequence of cells responding to different requirements. The great mystery is the origin of life in the form of cells which can not only reproduce but can also make changes to themselves. I agree that these miraculous abilities provide a good case for a designer.