More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, October 17, 2024, 11:51 (17 hours, 37 minutes ago) @ David Turell

Cancer and cellular autonomy

dhw: Do they or do they not have the autonomous ability to take their own decisions?

DAVID: They act autonomously as rebels.

dhw: Thank you. I wonder why your God gave nasty cancer cells the autonomous intelligence to work out their own ways to survive, whereas their victims could only follow his instructions and pay the penalty.

DAVID: More perversions. Cancer cells use God's standard in-every-cell instructions in perverted ways.

So why do you think your God gave cancer cells the decision-making ability to act autonomously?

DAVID (under “kinesins”): Molecular mistakes are not decisions in normal cells. See above re cancer.

You always try to change “cell” to “molecules” or “proteins” when we discuss autonomy. If cancer cells are able to take their own autonomous decisions, then there has to be some kind of decision-making mechanism that directs their molecules to “rebel”. Why would your God give them that mechanism, but not give it to “normal” cells?

God’s purposes for creating life

See the “evolution” thread for your absurd argument that despite the various purposes you have proposed, including his one and only purpose for creating life (us and our food),your purposeful God may not have a purpose or “reason” for his actions.

Double standards

I asked why David’s God found it necessary to design the vast universe if his only purpose was to design us plus food.

DAVID: I am willing to accept that only God knows why. It is called 'belief'.

dhw: You are in the good company of atheists, whom you accuse of ignoring all the facts gathered under the banner of intelligent design. Are you “willing to accept” that chance is the only possible explanation for life because that is what is called ‘belief’.

DAVID: Not belief if it is based upon an irrational expectation!

dhw: […] of course, you are all free to believe what you want to. I just object to the double standards: your faith is irrational, but you condemn their faith as being irrational, and they would no doubt do the same!

DAVID: Back to your beloved 'double standards' your protective blanket. My faith is not irrational but based upon valid reasons to believe.

We are talking about the vastness of the universe. Your belief that it was necessary for the production of life on Earth is based on belief/faith, not on reason. The atheist could argue that the vastness of the universe makes it inevitable that eventually chance would assemble the materials needed for life on Earth. If this is their belief, will you accept it? Of course you won’t. It’s OK for you to have faith in your irrational theory (you don’t know why), but not OK for them to have faith in theirs. Neither of you knows the truth, but each of you will condemn the other’s theory on the grounds of irrationality. Hence double standards.

Human evolution: Lots of interbreeding

dhw: All these comings and goings look like a free-for-all to me, or possibly – still with your designer – lots of experimenting.

DAVID: Perhaps He allowed nature to do some experimentation. You want one jump from apes to sapiens? Talk about de novo!

dhw: But one jump is precisely what you advocate for the species you believe your God created “de novo” in the Cambrian! I’m delighted to hear that you have room in your beliefs for nature to conduct experiments. Do you regard nature as a conscious mind separate from your God?

DAVID: I believe a designer God manages nature.

If nature doesn’t have a mind of its own, then it’s the “manager” who does the experimenting.

Australopithecus; early hand use

DAVID: Early design of useful hands is a reasonable way for a designer to plan the evolution of newer forms.

dhw: You’d have thought an omnipotent, omniscient designer whose sole aim was to design homo sapiens (plus food) would have known exactly what hands he wanted to design rather than working his way through stage after stage and hominin after hominin. This history fits in neatly with the theories of a free-for-all, or of your God experimenting as he goes along. Or, of course, according to your latest conjecture, he may be some sort of disinterested zombie who fiddles with hands and everything else for no reason at all.

DAVID: Always seeking God's reasons as if He were a human. Adler did not say God had reasons.

We’re not talking about Adler’s beliefs, and your schizophrenic theories about a purposeful God who might be purposeless, and who may have thought patterns like ours but is not human in any way, are dealt with on the “evolution” thread.

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Thank you for the other articles you have posted. They don't call for any comments from me, but in effect these are what keeps the website going - you provide us with a constant flow of
information about current research. Invaluable!