More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 25, 2024, 11:20 (23 days ago) @ David Turell

Earthworm DNA is weird

DAVID: Only minor adaptations are allowed!.

dhw: Your usual assumption that your opinion should be regarded as fact.

DAVID: […] It is a FACT we only see minor adaptations within species at this time.

dhw: Correct. That is why we can only theorize about the past. It is not a fact that your God – presumably anticipating Shapiro – added an 11th commandment to the effect that cells shall not be allowed to design anything but minor adaptations.

DAVID: That 11th commandment is functioning right now as you admit. Evolution is in the past and my theory is God did it.

There is no speciation right now. That can hardly be regarded as proof that your God exists and either preprogrammed or personally dabbled every single innovation, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder of the past. All our explanations are theories.

Disordered proteins (and glue your predator)

DAVID: Like the previous entry this demonstrates how close to chaos are the functioning proteins in every cell. The only conclusion I can reach is that this is the only way life can exist. It is an error prone system, which gives rise to dhw's theodicy complaints about God: God should have developed life without these problems. He didn't because He knew this had to be the only way to create life.

dhw: As always under “theodicy”, you try to confine the whole subject to the role of cells and their mistakes, desperately avoiding all the forms of evil for which you yourself blame your God (natural disasters, murderous bacteria and viruses, murderous humans). See the evolution thread.

DAVID: In the one area of cellular mistakes, you refuse to recognize the necessary lousy-goosy functions that create life.

I am quite happy to recognize all the mistakes. I am at a loss as to why you insist that they cannot possibly indicate your God’s creation of a free-for-all, and why you think an all-powerful God was not only forced to create such a fallible system, but was also weak enough to require our help in solving the problems.

DNA hunts pathogens

DAVID: how can a complex system like this develop? Can an evolutionary system based on chance mutations achieve it? I strongly doubt it. It had to be designed. What is amazing is how many different ways the immune system protects us.

dhw: The cell communities of the immune system change step by step as they defend themselves against new pathogens. But of course they don’t always succeed. The dispute between you and me is not over the theory of chance mutations, but over your insistence that your God – if he exists - is dabbling every inch of the way, as opposed to the possibility that he may have given the cells themselves the ability to design their defences. This “free-for-all” would explain why – if your God exists – it is the cells that may prove inefficient, and not your God. But for some reason, you cannot accept that possibility.

DAVID: God did give immune system cells many defenses to use. If God started life with cells, why shouldn't He design them to do their immunity job? I agree, if they fail, it is not God's fault.

This sounds like a very grudging acceptance that your God may have given cells the autonomous ability to change themselves as and when new threats arise. If he has to dabble each new “cure”, then of course it is he who fails and not the cells.

Octopus and fish hunt together

QUOTE: "It turns out solitary octopuses actually like to partake in multi-species hunting parties. They join fish on their revels and have even been caught disciplining unruly hunting companions with a sly punch.”

DAVID: […] Obviously a learned behavior.

Another delightful example of animal intelligences combining to mutual advantage. Thank you. I’m never quite sure what you are implying with the term “learned behavior”. It must have had a beginning, when octopus and fish first cooperated and registered the benefits. Its success would have meant that it was then passed on and became a normal feature of their everyday lives. The same process would have applied to all symbiotic relationships, strategies, lifestyles etc.