Miscellaneous (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 26, 2024, 09:14 (20 hours, 15 minutes ago) @ David Turell

Immune system complexity: sniffing out invaders

DAVID: DNA complete instructions will make a cell look intelligent. No need for autonomy.

dhw: It is not a matter of “need”. Your theory is that your God either dabbled or, 3.8 billion years ago, supplied the first cells with instructions for each and every problem that would arise in the future, to be switched on automatically when each problem arose. The alternative is that he supplied the first cells with the autonomous mechanism that would enable future cells to look for (but sadly not always to find) the solutions. Our example here is the immune system, but the same argument can be applied to speciation. (Hence the mixture of extinction, adaptation and innovation.) Same question again: why do you think your God could not have given cells the intelligence they actually appear to have?

DAVID: No need to. God invented life and had the full capacity to give cells full instructions to handle all issues.

They do not have full instructions to handle all issues. See the next entry, issue (3).

Immunity system complexity: Battling pseudomonas

DAVID: Pseudomonas is a tough nasty bug. This exciting research in finding ways to fight it. Of course dhw will point out God allowed this to exist. I don't know why, but here we see humans taking up the battle because we have the God-given mental capacity for it.

This sort of dilemma underlies three major issues that we’ve been discussing. 1) Theodicy: Why would an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God either design or allow this form of evil? 2) Does it not fit in with the concept of evolution as a free-for-all rather than a process carefully directed towards the design of a single species (us) plus its food? 3) Does it not completely shatter your theory that your omnipotent, omniscient God dabbles or has provided “full instructions to handle all issues”? Quite clearly he has failed miserably, according to your theory, and we humans are left to try and relieve the suffering your God has inflicted on us. However, if you embrace the theory that he gave cells the autonomous mechanism to work out their own solutions (i.e. intelligence), we have a full explanation of the medical successes and failures, and also of the process of extinction, adaptation and innovation. The autonomous intelligence is just as varied among micro-organisms as it is among macro-organisms. Some cells can solve the problems, and some can’t.

Different birds build different nests

DAVID: […] the weaverbirds only followed one designated design.

dhw: Does that mean God designed the weaverbird’s nest but all the other birds were able to design their own?

DAVID: That is what it appears to be. (dhw’s bold)

This changed to:
DAVID: Birds instructed in nest design may make individual nests.

dhw: Ugh! The other birds appear to be able to design their own nests, but the moment I point out the implications, whoosh! No, no, they have to be instructed, just like the weaverbird. How do you know the birds are not what they appear to be?

DAVID: If the weaverbirds have instructions why shouldn't these birds?

If these birds appear to be able to design their own nests, how do you know they are not? And how do you know the weaverbird is not?

Theoretical origin of life: Space is filled with organics

dhw: why did he leave them floating around for about 1000,000,000 years, and then use them to create and cull all kinds of life forms, if all he wanted to do was create us and our food?

DAVID: We are here, against all odds, and you have no answer for that.[…]

dhw: If he exists, we don’t know why he chose to evolve the duckbilled platypus, or indeed why he chose to create life at all. How does that justify your ridiculing him as being messy and inefficient?

DAVID: Can you justify evolution as a simple progression to us?

As usual, you answer a question with a question. I’m not even sure what your question means, but the answer is no, and you can’t either. Evolution is not a simple progression to us, since it produced millions of now extinct species that had no connection with us. That is why it is nonsense to argue that your omnipotent, omniscient God's one and only purpose must have been to design us and our food, and your theory is so illogical that you call your God messy and inefficient. You’d rather ridicule him than admit that your theory might be wrong.