More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 11, 2024, 14:49 (7 days ago) @ David Turell

Cancer and cellular autonomy

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.

DAVID: Only cancer!!!

I thought that was just “one of the warts that had to exist”.

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?

Why should we wish that God would enjoy creating?[/i] (Interest, I agree, could be our wish.) But you have accepted the feasibility of your other proposals, too - including his desire to be worshipped: “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.

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

The other phrase you used was thought patterns and emotions. I think these would cover your belief that he enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, and wants to be worshipped; and they would also cover my proposals that he might like to experiment in order to achieve a particular goal or in order to learn new things and make new discoveries, as would also apply to a free-for-all. I don’t know why you always try to trivialise your own proposals and mine as “entertainment” or “fun”, or why you wish to downgrade enjoyment as “need”. But then I don’t know why you like to ridicule your God as “messy, cumbersome and inefficient” when there are possible explanations of evolution that have him doing precisely what he wants to do.

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.

DAVID: Yes designed by God.

Thank you for once more accepting the evidence for cellular intelligence. You are making good progress.

Biochemical controls

DAVID: A cell is all proteins in one form or another..

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.

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

“Vastly mostly” does not mean that a cell is ALL proteins. But it doesn’t matter. You made a little mistake which I have corrected. I am not disputing the fact that the folds are 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.

DAVID: God provided both design and functional information in the genome.

That is your theory, which I neither accept nor reject. It doesn’t exclude the theory of cellular intelligence, and it doesn’t justify your distortion of my approach to the points under discussion.