More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, November 02, 2024, 08:22 (19 days ago) @ David Turell

Cancer and cellular autonomy

DAVID: Subverting God's instructions to survive does not insult God. There is lots of freedom of action in the biochemistry of life.

dhw: I should have picked up on “subvert” first time. Previously you wrote: “They are free to use God’s instructions as they wish.” Using is not the same as subverting. If God’s instructions allow them to kill us, and God does not want them to kill us, then of course his instructions are at fault, which even you would find hard to reconcile with your image of his perfection.

DAVID: God's instructions for survival are in all cells! Cancer's use is when they are free from restraints. Not God's fault.

Do you mean that your God issues specific instructions on how to deal with each individual threat for the rest of time, or do you mean he has given cells the ability to work out for themselves just how to deal with each threat? If cancer cells are free from restraint, then clearly they act autonomously, as you said at the start of this discussion.

Ecosystem importance

dhw: And your purposeful God’s possible purpose for designing and culling the millions of organisms and ecosystems unconnected with us and our resources was….???

DAVID: Unknown. He chose to evolve us but we cannot know why.

dhw: And you believe he chose to design and then destroy countless other organisms and ecosystems that had no connection with us, and you can’t think of a single reason why, but he must have had a reason, although “why must he have a reason?” (See the evolution thread for the rest of the muddle.)

DAVID: It is a muddle when I don't/can't know God's reasoning??? Daft.

No, it is a muddle when you pretend to know God’s purpose but can’t find a single reason why he would act in such an illogical way. You simply cannot bear the thought that your theory concerning your God’s purpose might be wrong!

Evolution without natural selection

DAVID: Survival is the real point, not natural selection.

dhw: It’s one of the real points. May I offer a summary? Evolution is driven by organisms improving their chances of survival by changes made in response to new conditions. These may be adaptations or innovations. Natural selection is simply the process whereby some organs/organisms can and some cannot survive in the new conditions. The means whereby the changes take place are unknown. Darwin proposed random mutations, you propose God preprogramming or dabbling, and Shapiro proposes cellular intelligence.

DAVID: Sums it up.

We are clearly in agreement that the article itself is way off target, but it’s also good to record agreement between us on the process and the problems.

Spliceosome architecture

QUOTE: You have many dozens of editors going through the material and making rapid decisions on whether a scene makes the final cut. It's an astonishing level of molecular specialization at the scale of big Hollywood productions, but there's an unexpected twist. Any one of the contributors can step in, take charge, and dictate the direction. Rather than the production falling apart, this dynamic results in a different version of the movie. It's a surprising level of democratization we didn't foresee,

dhw: Although generally the “film” will remain the same, or no species would be stable, this autonomous decision-making by individuals (even at molecular level) can presumably also result in adaptations and innovations as well as diseases and death. It all sounds remarkably like a free-for-all – and of course if God exists, he would have designed it as such.\

DAVID: Another summary.

Yes. I hope you agree that my summary is a reasonable deduction from the quote.

Theoretical origin of life

DAVID: one must use the exact length of eight molecules each, add cysteine and get a welcome result. All of this must happen on a barren Earth by chance! Just providing a membrane without a metabolism doesn't come close to making a cell.

Thank you for your revealing observation. I’m all in favour of this kind of research as a sign of human curiosity and perseverance as we look for explanations, but even I was struck by the degree of doubt made all too obvious by the auxiliary verbs: might have spawned…might be relevant…may mimic a stage in evolution…may have similarly sparked…may have served…Each one adds to my feeling that in spite of every sensational new discovery, we are still no nearer to solving the great mystery!