More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 01, 2024, 11:12 (17 days ago) @ David Turell

Disordered proteins (and glue your predator)

DAVID: I view God as finished with His creations, but is still here watching how it all works.

dhw: I’m glad to hear that your God is still interested in watching how it all works. Very human of him. Why do you think he’s still interested enough to keep watching?

DAVID: Don't you maintain interest in your creations?

Yes, indeed. You have given us yet another example of your God’s possible human attributes which could have motivated his creation of life: the desire to create something he would find interesting. A theory you once rejected on the grounds that it “humanizes” God. Thank you for your volte face.

Early mammalian evolution

dhw: […] I have offered you three alternative theistic explanations for the comings and goings of species (experimentation or a free-for-all out of enjoyment and interest in creation and its possibilities, or experimentation for a particular purpose), and your only objection to these is that they entail human attributes contrary to those you wish him to have – all lumped under “humanization”, which you have at last recognized as ridiculous because even your dog can have human attributes without being a human being.

DAVID: What I have bolded is a clear example of purely human wishes driving your 'God'.

Please stop contradicting yourself. You have just hypothesized that your God is still interested in his creations, so why do you dismiss the proposal that he created life because he wanted something interesting to watch?

DNA hunts pathogens

dhw: If they follow God’s full instructions and fail, doesn’t that suggest to you that the instructions were wrong?

DAVID: No. The bugs are pretty smart in your proposed current free-for-all. (dhw’s bold)

dhw: So the bugs outsmart the omniscient God who created them? […]

DAVID: That is why theodicy exists for discussion. The bugs God produced are pretty smart as designed.

The bugs outsmart your God, but you prefer that explanation to the possibility that your God gave cells the means to design their own defences, and so if they failed, it was their fault and not his.

Biochemical controls

DAVID: The systems for producing life may be limited to only one! God would know that. You cannot use what does not work, can you? […]
And
DAVID (under “Microbiome in the brain): God wanted to create the life we have. He knew it was the only system that would work. And you imply you know more than God about what would work.

Why do you assume that your all-powerful God was forced to design something full of mistakes which he did not wish to design? If he had wanted a Garden of Eden, free from disease and all other evils, do you think he was incapable of designing it? You imply that your perfect, omnipotent God was not omnipotent (as well as being imperfect and inefficient in his use of evolution).

Walking fish

dhw: Do you think your God designed the walking fish for the one and only purpose of serving us? […]

DAVID: […] All part of Earth's overall ecosystem. Necessary ecosystems demonstrated here constantly.

You keep calling them “necessary”. Necessary for what? If we plus our food were your God’s one and only purpose, why were all the extinct species “necessary”? And why is the walking fish “necessary” for our existence?

The bowerbird concert hall

DAVID: like the weaverbirds, this is a complex behavior that strongly suggests it was supplied by design and not by a natural form of trial and error.

A truly delightful post. It’s gorgeous to hear about the different methods we humans and our fellow creatures set about attracting members of the opposite sex. I see absolutely no reason why they should not have designed their own strategies, just as we do, and it may well be that the bowerbirds gradually refined and improved their techniques through trial and error, just as we do.

Unconscious pattern learning
QUOTES: "The study shows that neurons in key brain regions combine information on what occurs and when, allowing the brain to pick out the patterns in events as they unfold over time. That helps the brain to predict coming events, the authors say.”
"The authors found that the neurons could also anticipate what images would appear next, suggesting that the brain can learn to predict future events on the basis of learnt patterns."

DAVID: our brain is built to help us, even in advance as I have presented before. This is a conceptual form of planning, not likely to be developed by natural selection in advance of the need. Only a designer fits.

I’m not sure what you mean by “conceptual planning”. The article simply covers predictions based on experience, a process which we obviously share with our fellow creatures when we all take actions to cope with the expected repetitions of “patterns” (e.g. anticipating the onset of winter).