More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, September 27, 2024, 11:54 (21 days ago) @ David Turell

Disordered proteins (and glue your predator)

DAVID: How about accepting the reason for mistakes? Do you understand what I present about the biochemistry of life?

dhw: Of course: life as God designed it cannot exist without the potential for mistakes. Do you understand why this could indicate that your God created a free-for-all, and why his vain efforts to correct the mistakes and his consequent need to be helped by us humans contradict the view that he is omnipotent and omniscient?

DAVID: NO contradiction. God designed the only form that can work from His omniscience and omnipotence. You have not accepted or rebutted this major point.

I do not believe than an omnipotent and omniscient God would be somehow compelled to invent a system full of mistakes which he is incapable of correcting without our help. I would suggest that an omnipotent and omniscient God – if he exists – would design life as he wanted it to be. That is why I suggest he WANTED the “mistakes” because he WANTED a free-for-all which would result in individuals and species coming and going in an ever-changing history. Isn’t that what we have?

DNA hunts pathogens

DAVID: God gave the cells full instructions no current dabbling needed.

dhw: So 3.8 billion years ago, your God gave cells full instructions on how to defend themselves against every single threat they would encounter for the rest of life’s history. And it’s entirely his fault if and when his instructions fail.

DAVID: Again a distortion. It 1s not God's fault if the immune cells fail.

If your God gave your automatons instructions on how to deal with every problem but his instructions didn’t work, then of course it’s his fault. But if he gave them the means to work out their own solutions and they failed to do so, then it’s their fault.

Early mammalian evolution

QUOTE: "These findings suggest that mammalian ancestors experimented with different jaw functions, leading to the evolution of 'mammalian' traits independently in various lineages. The early evolution of mammals, it turns out, was far more complex and varied than previously understood."

DAVID: mammals are very different unique branch of evolution that led to us. What was the natural necessity that drove these developments? There is none that is obvious. Still an evidence for design with purpose.

dhw: […] your question becomes all the more pertinent if you apply it to your theory of evolution: what was the necessity that drove your all-powerful, all-knowing God to perform all these experiments if his one and only goal was to design us and our food? And do you accept the term “experiments” in the context of your “design with purpose”.

DAVID: God experimented by choosing evolution as His method and to achieve His purpose. You constantly bring up my point of view. And constantly refuse to recognize God carefully supplied humans with all their needs.

So you do accept the theory that he had to experiment in order to produce us, and that would explain why he created and then culled the 99.9% of life forms that did not lead to us. (Previously, you rejected the whole concept of experimentation on the grounds that your God was omnipotent and omniscient.) I have no idea why you think that the 3+ thousand million years’ worth of comings and goings were all geared to supplying us with our needs, although 99.9% of life forms had no connection with us and our needs. But I can see why you are so desperate to believe that we are descended from the 99.9% although, in your own words, we are only descended from the 0.1%.

Biochemical controls

DAVID: as previously discussed in theodicy threads, there are built-in correction processes. Obviously, they are not perfect. I think this is the best God could do.

dhw: So your perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, first-cause designer God is not perfect, omniscient or omnipotent after all.

DAVID: Again missed the point. From above: 'God designed the only form that can work from His omniscience and omnipotence. You have not accepted or rebutted this major point.' Can you try to?

Why should I try to accept that an omniscient and omnipotent God is incapable of correcting the mistakes he was forced to make, and even relies on us to humans to do what he can’t do? (See “theodicy”.)

Walking fish

QUOTE: “'New things came from old parts,” says David Kingsley, a developmental biologist at Stanford University. A walking fish with taste organs on its limbs may look “really new and cool and different, but when you dig in… the new things have come by taking a tool kit of preexisting genes and deploying them in new ways.”

I’m reminded very strongly of Shapiro: “Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a result of cellular self-modifications and cell fusions.” In the context of David’s theory of evolution, one can’t help wondering why God – if he exists – would preprogramme or dabble such oddities if his sole purpose was to produce us and our food. How about the possibility that God – if he exists – gave cells the powers described by Shapiro, as part of a great free-for-all that would account for all the oddities and all the species that come and go?