More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 04, 2024, 08:57 (12 days ago) @ David Turell

Black holes needed for life

DAVID: It makes perfect sense to me! God designed it so it had to be that way. You second guess GOD!

dhw: I don’t know if your God exists. Your design argument presents a good case for his existence. Your belief that your God designed billions of probably lifeless galaxies in order to create us and our food, though you haven’t a clue why he would do so, is not a very convincing argument for God’s existence, or for your theory about his one and only purpose.

DAVID: My belief makes perfect sense. It is what God wanted to happen.

Once more, you have missed the point. The billions of apparently lifeless stars, planets and galaxies are a reason for doubting the very existence of God (as well as your anthropocentric theory of evolution).

God and evolution: weaverbirds (now back to intelligence v instructions)

DAVID: All of God's good has some bad side effects.

dhw: Two separate issues here: You stand by your theory that he dabbled or preprogrammed all of the above, so no species apart from the nasty ones have ever had the intelligence to design their homes, means of self-defence, strategies for catching prey, or for surviving changing conditions. Only the murderous ones were given such autonomous intelligence.

DAVID: Makes little sense. Good and bad had the same DNA programming.

dhw: I agree that it makes little sense. That is why I suggest that the good and the bad may all have the same autonomous intelligence to work out their various ways of survival.

DAVID: Or are DNA programmed as nest building shows.

Maybe you could be more precise. Do you mean that your God provided each bird with a precise plan for its individual nest, or do you mean that he provided each bird with the ability to design its own nest? Same problem with the next item:

Bacterial intelligence? navigation and sensing

DAVID: this chemo-sensory ability is built into the bacterial DNA, which certainly makes them move intelligently.

DAVID: Yes, following DNA instructions.

You said they have the ABILITY, but now you talk of instructions. There is a huge difference. Your answer to the bird question should clarify what you mean: did God give them the ability to build their own nests, or did he given them instructions for each form of nest?

Zombified flies

QUOTE: Once the fungus has infected a fly, it eats the fly from the inside over the course of a week or so while the fly is alive. When nearly all of the fly's nutrients have been consumed, the fungus starts to manipulate the brain and begins to take over the fly's behaviour.

DAVID: Convergence at work. Relationships with fungus control have been shown here many times. The extreme complexity suggests design.

Yuck! I can well believe that fungi – like all other forms of life – design their own methods of survival, but I can’t help wondering why you think your God would take the trouble to design such processes, especially if all he wanted to do was design us and our food. Do you fancy a dish of fried zombifly?