More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, September 04, 2024, 17:09 (12 days ago) @ dhw

Black holes needed for life

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

dhw: 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).

You don't understand belief! God created the universe as it is for His own reasons. It'd your human reasoning against God's.

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

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.

dhw: 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?

He designed the nests in the bird DNA. some birds do simple modifications.

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.

dhw: 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?

My sentence above is clear: the bird's DNA carries nest construction instructions.

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.

dhw: 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?

No, but we've met these guys before in zombified ants. All parts of necessary ecosystems.