More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 17, 2024, 11:13 (2 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The logic is design is required, thus a designing mind is required.

dhw: And the logic is that if a designing mind is required to explain the existence of designing minds, then the designing mind must have been designed by a designing mind. Back we go to the choice between two “first causes”, as above.

DAVID: No. First means first. The designing mind in uncaused.

dhw: Or infinite combinations of matter eventually produce primitive forms of life which evolve.

DAVID: What types of matter causes them to combine in the first place? What made those types? Nebulous as usual.

First means first. Energy and matter are “uncaused”. What type of anything causes the existence of a supreme form of consciousness? What made this mind? Nebulous as usual. Can’t you see that each of the alternative “first causes” poses questions that are equally impossible to answer?

Recent new modifications

DAVID: No evidence cells produce speciation.

dhw: It’s a theory based on their established ability to edit their own DNA. There is no evidence that an unknown, eternal mind programmed or dabbled every innovation, lifestyle, strategy etc. In your case, it’s a theory based on the definite type of God you want: i.e. an omnipotent, omniscient, purposeful God whose only purpose was to design us plus food, and who therefore inexplicably and inefficiently designed every species, though he then had to cull 99.9% of them because they were irrelevant to his purpose.

DAVID: That is the huge gap in your thinking: all of evolution evolved the present supply of plants and animals providing food and materials for human use. Nothing extraneous. Culling simply equals the process.

dhw: The present supply of plants and animals evolved from 0.1% off past species. According to you, for more than 3,000,000,000 years (pre-Cambrian), not even 0.1% evolved the present supply. And even you are troubled by your evolutionary theory, because you know that it makes no sense for an omniscient, omnipotent God to design 99.9% of species irrelevant to his one and only goal of designing us and our food.

DAVID: Makes no sense to your small human brain, but it was God's choice.

It is your theory concerning God’s choice, and you have no idea why your perfect God should have chosen such an imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient method to fulfil the one and only purpose you allow him to have. Most of this is covered on the “evolution” thread anyway.

Earthworm DNA is weird

QUOTE: "They suspect the worm's genomes scrambled in response to shifts into new habitats, but have yet to determine which came first, the worm's ventures into freshwater and land or their genes' adventures into new positions in their genetic molecules (chromosomes).”

dhw: Common sense suggests to me that just as bacteria are able to edit their DNA in response to new conditions, the worm did the same.

DAVID: Your sense is not common, or the experts would not be puzzled.

They suspect that this is the case, and I have no idea why you are so resolutely opposed to it.

Plate tectonics drive evolution

QUOTE: "Furthermore, we analyzed a series of environmental factors that we considered potential candidates for influencing coelacanth evolutionary rates. These included tectonic plate activity, ocean temperatures, water oxygen levels, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.”

dhw: [..] the crucial factor is the way species change according to conditions. As with the worm, these are adaptations, and we should distinguish between brand new species (through innovation) and species of species (all the different kinds of coelacanth), but common sense suggests that both are triggered by organisms (cell communities) responding to new conditions. The autonomous ability to do so would have been designed by God, if he exists.

DAVID: Speciation is a major form of adaptation, and no one knows how it happens. Cells don't/can't form now major designs.

Since no one knows how it happens, how can you know that it DOESN’T happen Shapiro’s way? And why do you think his way is less likely than your own theory that an unknown, sourceless mind preprogrammed or dabbled every single innovation (not to mention every lifestyle, strategy and natural wonder past, present and future)?

Intracellular communication

QUOTE; How can RNA from one branch of the tree of life be understood by organisms on another? It’s a common language, Buck said. RNA has most likely been around since the very beginning of life.

The ability of cells to communicate is, of course, a fundamental feature of the intelligence which would enable cell communities to make changes to themselves as they respond to new conditions. We know that these changes take place as adaptations, and there is no reason to suppose that they might not also extend to the innovations that result in new species.