More miscellany Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, August 13, 2024, 11:18 (100 days ago) @ dhw

Insect gap

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: The de novo appearance of insects requires design information as in the Cambrian and also in the plant bloom event, which Darwin acknowledged was an abrupt appearance.

I am not disputing the abruptness or the design theory (as per Shapiro). Please tell us what information had 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.

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

DAVID: No invalidation, in my discussion of Shapiro above.

Thank you. I remain delighted that you are now on the verge of accepting Shapiro’s theory….

Symbiotic controls (back to “theodicy”)

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Same old answer. The good results far outweigh the bad.

So in answering the question posed by theodicy, which is how an all-good God can create the bad, we should ignore the question posed by theodicy,

Natural killer cells

QUOTES: a 2017 study showed that tumors can avoid being killed by triggering the release of transforming growth factor beta (TGFb), a molecule that can turn NK cells into intermediate type 1 innate lymphoid cells (intILC1).

“'Tumors have developed these fantastic environments to survive…”

DAVID: It is amazing to me that such specific proteins create specific functions as the intent of their biochemical reactions. Only design can do this.

Are you telling us that your God deliberately designed tumors so that they could survive and kill us?

How complexification works

DAVID: obviously all levels of brains in size or complexity have the capacity to coordinate into new networks of understanding. It is not just our brain that has complexification ability. I assume it is a mechanism going all the way back to Trilobites.

I agree. The article basically tells us nothing more than the fact that cells cooperate in finding ways of “understanding”. I would suggest that this is so in all forms of life, including those that do not have brains.