More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, October 26, 2024, 09:37 (26 days ago) @ David Turell

Cancer and cellular autonomy

DAVID: Cancer results from mistakes in DNA. This allows them freedom to misuse God's instructions in rebellious ways. That they use the instructions allows researchers to explore how DNA is used in normal cells. God does not give them autonomy. It comes from mistakes in DNA copying or mutations.

dhw: So when you wrote that “cancer cells act autonomously as rebels”, did you mean that God programmed them [...] Or did you mean that he gave them the autonomous freedom to rebel [...]?

DAVID: God gave them nothing!!! Must I repeat the very clear-in-meaning above?

Please don’t. Just explain what you meant by “act autonomously” when you wrote that “cancer cells act autonomously”. I thought that meant they made their own decisions.

Sponges collect molybdenum (leading to ecosystem importance)

DAVID: You miss the entire concept of ecosystems providing what humans need.[…]

dhw: I’ve no idea how every single extinct pre-human ecosystem could have satisfied us, or even how we are “satisfied” by the extremophiles, nest and sponges. As far as I’m aware, ecosystems have come and gone, along with the organisms that made and depended on them [...]

DAVID: Does time's passage confuse you? Ecosystems come and go with time.

Yes indeed, and that is why I can’t understand how every ecosystem for the first 3.X billion years prior to our existence, plus current extremophiles etc., could all have been designed to satisfy our needs.

dhw: A possibly purposeless God who purposefully creates humans, who probably/possibly has human thought patterns but is not human in any way, who may want to be worshipped but can’t want to be worshipped because he is selfless, but possibly can want to be worshipped because all our proposals are possible, and who may have designed the weaverbird’s nest for no reason at all but designed it because along with millions of other natural wonders it provides us with what we need……Yes, I find it all confusing.

DAVID: When one thinks about God all of those possibilities exist. What you pick and choose obviously is nothing like my choices.

dhw: They are all your choices and your contradictions. I haven’t even mentioned any of my alternatives.

DAVID: Do we know anything about God? No.

This does not alter the fact that I listed YOUR choices, though you claimed that the list was nothing like your choices. Please stop contradicting yourself and blaming me.

Theoretical origin of life: deep ocean vents extremophiles

dhw: [...] The whole history of life on Earth – whether there is a God or not – suggests that it has been one colossal free-for-all, with interaction between cellular intelligence (possibly designed by a God) and the environment as the driving force.

DAVID: Environment drives nothing but creates a need for an adaptation. We see minor adaptations now. Only in the past was true speciation.

dhw: Has it never occurred to you that “need” is a driving force? Or that changing conditions might offer opportunities for innovation? We know speciation has stopped for now. […] But if organisms have the autonomous ability to change their structures adaptively, it is not unreasonable to suppose that past conditions also allowed them to change their structures innovatively. You seem to consider this to be impossible, but are happy to embrace the theory that 3.8 billion years ago an unknown mind preprogrammed - or alternatively dabbled ad hoc - every innovation and possibly every environmental change.

DAVID: Environmental change allows new adaptations; inadequate adaptation results in extinction. The 'force' is in each organism.

Environmental changes may require adaptations, since non-adaptation will result in extinction. They may also allow innovations. Without changed conditions, there would be no adaptation or innovation, which may go on for millions of years. Gould’s “punctuated equilibrium” sums up the process. Of course changing conditions are a driving force, as is the will to survive them. The great question is what enables organisms to change themselves in response to those changes.

Introducing the brain: cleaning out lipids

QUOTE: "[…] the more researchers learn about the brain's typical functions, the closer we get to understanding the stubbornly incomprehensible diseases associated with them too."

DAVID: It is not likely this system developed by chance. More evidence for design.

dhw: These two comments combined are not exactly complimentary to the designer. But we can still marvel at the complexities of the brain and the perseverance of humans in their efforts to correct the problems caused by the faulty design.

DAVID: Yes.

I’m glad you can see the veiled criticism of your God’s inefficient design.

Genome complexity

QUOTE: The findings might reflect how eggs adapted to different environments—fish eggs are typically fertilized outside the animal, whereas mammalian eggs are fertilized within."

DAVID: A complex of three proteins must be found by chance or the process is designed.

An egg is a cell, and the quote clearly favours deliberate adaptation by cells to their environment. Certainly not chance. A good advertisement perhaps for cellular intelligence (possibly designed by your God)?