More miscellany Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, August 12, 2024, 09:18 (35 days ago) @ dhw

Insect gap

QUOTE: "It is a signal that tells about a saltational history of life, with a series of bursts of biological creativity that can only be explained with the goal-directed infusion of new information from outside the system". (David’s bold)

dhw: I’m not convinced by the bold above. The new information does not have to come from outside the “system” if the system is one of ever changing conditions which will result either in extinction, adaptation, or innovation. This will be the case, whether there is or is not a God, and if there is, whether he controls every environmental change that triggers the three consequences. My own position, as you know, remains open, and while accepting the feasibility of the divine design argument, I also accept the feasibility of the argument that intelligent cells might have designed their own innovations in response to changing conditions, and their intelligence may have been given to them by your God.

DAVID: And how do the cells create those changes? Shapiro's method is specifically editing DNA with new information!! So, it is 'inside' information, rather than from the 'outside'. Still new information is required. (dhw's bold)

dhw: Thank you for confirming my scepticism concerning Bechly’s conclusion that the new information must come from outside the system.

DAVID: But your conclusion is not complete. You are so focused on Shapiro's theory which is all I discussed. The new appearance of insects like the Cambrian is a design gap. Outside information is required. From above my sentence should have been altered: 'Still new information is required' from a designer. That is Bechly's point

I know what Bechly was trying to say, and I am disputing it. You agreed with my objection, but now you want to change what you wrote! There is no disagreement on the fact that new information is required. The new information is changing conditions (= inside the system) and responses to those conditions (also inside the system). Please tell me what new information has to come from outside the system.

Plant controls

dhw: Over and over again, we see that all life forms are possessed of some form of intelligence which directs their actions in response to conditions. It’s hard to imagine chance as the problem solver, but it’s equally hard to imagine that your God would preprogramme or dabble every single organism’s response to every single condition and problem that might arise throughout the whole history of life. Some form of panpsychism, however, would seem to offer an explanation – that all living things are possessed of some form of intelligence. If this were to be the case, then of course the source would still remain an open question, some kind of designer God being a possible answer.

DAVID: Well, we agree.

dhw: Thank you. I’m delighted that you are now on the verge of accepting Shapiro’s theory as the most feasible (with the provision that your God provided the source of the intelligence).

DAVID: No verge. Shapiro is purely at the cellular level. Whole organisms may have some minimal form of self-intelligence; certainly animals with brains, whole plants not so likely.

The cellular level covers all forms of life, including plants. This particular article discusses plant intelligence. How does it invalidate Shapiro’s theory?

Symbiotic controls

QUOTE: "Endosymbiosis, a phenomenon in which one organism lives inside of another, exists across several species. “It’s basically the basis of life,” said Ingrid Richter, a microbiologist at the Leibniz Institute. (DAVID’S bold)

dhw: Disregarding the tautology, we should perhaps remember that this was the revolutionary theory proposed by Lynn Margulis, who championed the theory of cellular intelligence. Of course we ourselves are prime examples, since there are billions of bacteria whose lives depend on us just as ours depend on them.

DAVID: And we need all of them.

dhw: We need the bacteria that help us. Unfortunately, there are also bacteria that make us ill or kill us, but that is another subject.

DAVID: Yes, a side effect of their importance.

Back to theodicy, and your God who knew he had created bacteria to kill us, but we should ignore them because God is perfect so we should shut our eyes to anything nasty which might be his fault.