More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 12, 2024, 19:45 (5 days ago) @ dhw

Cancer and cellular autonomy

DAVID: The study was about cancer abilities.

dhw: So now you believe that your God gave only cancer cells the intelligence to do their own designing, but all other cells follow his instructions. Which means that cancer cells are cleverer than God, because they often prove the inadequacy of his instructions. Why do you think he gave them their special, autonomous intelligence?

NO. They are rebels using God's instructions to survive. The make His instructions too adequate.

God’s purposes for creating life

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

dhw: 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. […]

DAVID: Your 'explanations' are all humanizing.

dhw: As you have rightly pointed out, sharing human-like thought patterns and emotions does not make your dog human, and does not make your God human either.

'Humanizing God' comes from the desires you give Him.

Kinesins

DAVID: You have distorted cellular intelligence all out of shape. The intricacies of biochemical design require the mental capacity of a thinking mind! Could mere cells do that? IMPOSSIBLE!!

dhw: With my theist’s hat on, I see no reason why your omnipotent God could not have designed the intricacies of cellular intelligence. Plenty of scientists back the theory, you repeatedly admit that cellular behaviour “looks” intelligent, and occasionally you even allow odds of 50/50. That’s good enough for me.

Again promoting second-hand design. Telling cells how to do it is much more cumbersome than doing the design yourself.

The Avalon Explosion

DAVID: firstly, clear gaps that have never been filled in. Secondly, his other point is quite clear, that favorable conditions are not drivers of innovations. That is the province of DNA actions.

Firstly, this again refutes your absurd theory that 99.9% of all species were our ancestors. Secondly, it raises the obvious question of why your God bothered to design all these dead ends if he only wanted to design us plus food.

Two answers one! The 99.9% were not our specific ancestors, but most of the 99.99% produced our current food.

dhw: Thirdly, I don’t understand the logic regarding conditions. Why did all these species go extinct if there were no changes in conditions, and why did the Cambrian period produce new phyla if conditions had not changed? We go back to the logic of extinctions. Changing conditions must always be a crucial factor for extinction and for innovation: they are what triggers the processes of destruction and activation.

Some driver force has to take advantage of new conditions. That is not a trigger, which must act upon new conditions. All if life has built-in triggers,

Far out cosmology

DAVID:It shows how gravity is the magic sculptor of these massive structures. And it comes back to dhw's wonderment-questioning about the universe's enormous size and structure. He asks why God made it so big if we humans are His purpose.

dhw: Yes indeed, and there seems to be no answer.

The believer's answer is God needed it that way.