More Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Friday, May 10, 2024, 09:38 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

Early barred spiral galaxies

All covered on the “evolution” thread.

Cicadas (now the boredom theory)

DAVID: Back to your totally humanized God who needs unpredictability to avoid boredom! This is not any form of recognizable theism!

The desire to create something interesting does not make your God into a “total” human being! See the thread on “evolution” for your own theories that do not belong to any form of recognizable theism, and the pride you take in your independent thinking.

Reznick’s guppies

dhw: you and I have long since rejected random mutations as the driving force of macroevolution. We are therefore left with two possible theories: design by your God, or by Shapiro’s cellular intelligence, the source of which could be your God.

DAVID: This is in line with Shapiro's view of DNA controls. The guppies make minor DNA shifts to adapt as necessary.

dhw: We are in agreement, though Shapiro's theory extends to major shifts.

DAVID: With no evidence.

And the evidence for your divine dabbles or 3.X-billion-year-old book of instructions is…..?
The second post adds: "Organisms are problem-solving entities not passive objects being shaped by the environment.”

Yet more support for Shapiro, though a few weeks ago you were telling us that his theory was already dead and buried.

A snake feigns death

DAVID: It is obviously designed into these animals, not a learned instinct.
And under “fungus to fight wasps”:
DAVID: a learned instinct or a designed action? Since the activity is seen in several types of insects and such activity would protect species from extinction, i believe it is a designed instinct. How would a species survive with totally unprotected eggs?

In order to survive, all species find ways to protect themselves and their young, and it only takes one discovery (by accident or by clever thinking) to hit on an idea. If it doesn’t work, it will be jettisoned mighty fast. If it does work, it will survive and be passed on. Hence, an action initially designed by the organism and then passed on as a learned instinct.

Origin of sympathetic nervous system

QUOTE: "The findings suggest that the sympathetic nervous system was not an innovation of jawed vertebrates, but rather that the blueprint for it has been around since even before lampreys diverged from the main vertebrate line about half a billion years ago

DAVID This article shows that what develops in evolution is not a sudden appearance of a new innovation, but a step based upon much older preparatory developments.

Welcome to Darwin’s theory of common descent.

DAVID: This answers dhw's complaint that God made 99.9% of unnecessary organisms just to throw them away. They were all part of a purposeful development, step-by-step to a goal, or as in evolution steps to many, many goals.

I don’t know what “many, many goals” you are referring to, since you insist that your God only had one goal (us plus food.) When lines diverge, it’s common sense that they will keep whatever is useful (= natural selection), and as conditions change, it’s also common sense that more changes may take place in order to meet the new requirements. Clearly the sympathetic nerve system was not one of the innovations you announce as having been divinely invented “de novo” by your God, i.e. without any predecessors, and the lamprey is still here as one of 0.1% of surviving lines, and not descended from the 99.9% which your God inefficiently “had to” design and cull for reasons known only to himself.

Global warming

QUOTES: "The obvious benefits of CO2 is “an embarrassment to the large and profitable movement to ‘save the planet’ from ‘carbon pollution,’” write the authors. “If CO2 greatly benefits agriculture and forestry and has a small, benign effect on climate, it is not a pollutant at all."

"More CO2 is good news. It’s not that complicated."

DAVID: presented to give some balance to the garbage produced constantly that the Earth is getting too warm.

The “experts” disagree. I’m surprised that you yourself are so expert that you know which of them are right.

Viral biome calms mice:

DAVID: like bacteria, viruses play a helpful role in living organisms. Note the bold. we need to recognize the good they do and realize the bad events are a necessary byproduct of the actions of free-acting organisms. This is a real answer to dhw's theodical complaints about God. Obviously, God created viruses and bacteria to play helpful roles in life, which this study clearly shows. The problem is these organisms are running on their own controls and are free to get us trouble. An all-knowing God has produced what He had to produce to fill specific needs. We need to stop fearing viruses and bacteria. They are here for our good.

They are here for our good, but your all-powerful, all-knowing God gave them free will to kill 50 million people in a single year. You have explicitly BLAMED your God for this evil, but now you tell us not to be afraid of the bacteria and viruses which can kill us, because God made them all for our good, although he “had to” let them kill us as well, so that they could do us good. I wonder which theologians support this theory of yours.