New Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 01, 2025, 17:24 (33 days ago) @ dhw

First life

DAVID: We are discussing a time frame for first life. The article expresses surprise it is so small, representing an underlying belief the arrival of life should have taken longer.[/b]

dhw: I know what you and the article’s author express, and I’m pointing out to you that you have absolutely no idea how long life normally takes to appear, and so it is totally pointless for him and you to tell us that 70,000,000 years (or 40,000,000 years) is a surprisingly short time!

It comes from the above belief. You want exactitude but it doesn't exist.

T-cells help gut immunity

You digressed with a misleading reference to Raup. Our subject was your belief that cells automatically follow your God’s 3.8-billion-year old instructions for every new situation. I pointed out that every failure (extinction) must therefore be an example of your God’s inefficiency, whereas:
dhw: […]If he deliberately gave organisms autonomy, their extinction would be due to THEIR inefficiency, and not his.

DAVID: God gave all organisms a degree of adaptability to use. That is what fails. No issue of inefficiency.

dhw: What do you mean by a “degree of adaptability” if it’s not a degree of intelligence to organize themselves and make decisions independently of his instructions?

At the cellular level the instructions are followed.

NEW EXTREMOPHILES

DAVID: All ecosystems evolve along with human evolving. You have no point.

dhw: For 3.X thousand million years , ecosystems came and went, and there were no humans on the scene! So how can they have “evolved with human evolving”? You’re back where you started, with your God’s nonsensical method of fulfilling the only purpose you allow him to have: producing us and our food.

Yes, you and I are nonsensical results. Really?

Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism: design evidence

DAVID: [Darwin] believed chance mutations drove evolution, seasoned by natural selection. And that mess made our brain! No way!

dhw: I agree. I find Shapiro’s theory of design by intelligent cells far more convincing. Same theory of evolution, but different interpretation of how it works.

DAVID: Cells with minds equal to God. A totally improbable interpretation.

dhw: As humans are proving day by day, designers can design mechanisms capable of extraordinary feats. Why do you think your all-powerful, all-knowing God was incapable of designing minds clever enough to do their own designing? I can also hear the atheists cry: "How come clever cells need a designer, but a designer clever enough to design such cells does not need a designer?"

Back to a first cause discussion?

DAVID: An answer:

https://www.livescience.com/chemistry/asteroid-bennu-contains-the-seeds-of-life-osiris-...

dhw: The article makes no mention of God or of design. Hardly an answer.

DAVID: A proper designer would have needed seeds-of-life in place before designing life itself.

dhw: The seeds of life must have been present before they combined to make life, whether it was designed or not. What are you answering?

God made this universe with all elements needed for life.

Return to David's theory of evolution III

DAVID: The article's point was only about the end of evolution, nothing more. Stop beating on my theory when it isn't present.

dhw: So why did you put it under the heading “Return to David’s Theory of Evolution III”?

Under a discussion of evolution it fits.