More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, October 10, 2024, 18:02 (7 days ago) @ dhw

Cancer

DAVID: Cancer is cancer! Very rebellious.

dhw: Even rebellion denotes some form of free will. […] It would appear, then, that your God – if he exists – gave cells the ability to design their own means of survival, just as he gave humans their free will to commit evil.

DAVID: This is one of the warts that had to exist.

dhw: So cells make their own decisions. Now you know why I drag Shapiro into the discussion.

Only cancer!!!

Early galaxies (now back to God’s purposes for creating life)

dhw: There are no obvious purposes. You love the word “entertainment”, but the terms you used […] are “enjoyment” and “interest”.*** […] Why do you now think this is unreasonable and “humanizing”?

DAVID: Your God's desires are human desires. Can't you see that?

dhw: And you have accepted their feasibility: “all my ‘earlier proposals’ still apply.” And the possibility that the Creator has endowed his creations with attributes of his own does not mean he is a human being.

Not His attributes but His suggestions He wants entertainment and needs to have fun experimenting.

Macrophages repair lungs

QUOTE: The team hypothesized that the Ly6G+ macrophages were orchestrating damage repair by giving instructions to the progenitor cells.

DAVID: an amazing group of cells like teams from FEMA in the USA doing emergency management in storm-battered areas. The cells act with purpose and this is more evidence for design.

dhw: I like your comparison. Cells and cell communities act just like humans and human communities in their various modes of survival. More evidence for intelligence, possibly designed by your God.

Yes designed by God.

Biochemical controls

dhw: I don’t like this focus on proteins, since these are just one component of the cell and have to cooperate with other parts.

DAVID: A cell is all proteins in one form or another. The problem is folding in correctly. Proteins are free to do that.

dhw: I was a bit surprised to see this, so I googled and found “All cells are made from the same major classes of BBorganic molecules: nucleic acids, proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids.” It doesn’t matter. Let’s just stick to cells. […]

DAVID: […] So much for dhw's distain of the discussion about protein folding.

dhw : A disgraceful distortion. There is no disdain! Your statement was wrong: a cell is not ALL proteins, but I said it didn’t matter. In the context of cellular intelligence (leading to a free-for-all), I see no reason why we should confine the subject of cellular intelligence to protein folding. That’s all.

Your disgrace! Cells are vastly mostly proteins and the folds ae vital for functions!

Kinesins

QUOTE: Are these differences in function a result of random haphazardness — stochastic tweaking of gene sequences to give infinitesimally small perturbations of amino acids within the motor to eventually (over billions and billions of years) produce a smorgasbord of elegant machines like the kinesin family? Many in the scientific community have faith in this hopeless Darwinian theory. Thankfully, there are a number of scientists who view the nanoscale world with wonder and are open to the idea that molecular machines reflect purpose and design.

DAVID: All constructed from amino acids in various folding patterns. dhw to the contrary, this is the proper level for discussion of cellular activity.

dhw: Your attempts to distort my approach are becoming quite outrageous. I have explicitly opposed the theory of “random haphazardness”, view the nanoscale world with as much wonder as you do, and agree that the molecular machines reflect purpose and design. The intricacy of such mechanisms is part of the case for a designing God. This does not, however, disprove the case for intelligent design by the cells themselves, which allows for your God as the designer of that intelligence.

God provided both design and functional information in the genome.