Review of Spetner's book (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, November 23, 2014, 15:15 (3439 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: You claimed that “if humans are programmed in from the beginning, the environmental changes don't matter.” I am pointing out to you that if your God did not control environmental changes, he left a surprising amount to chance. Enter the comet, exit the great plan. In other words, your belief that God's evolutionary purpose was to produce humans would require complete control of the environment.- Gerald Schroeder, with tongue slightly in cheek, wondered if God decided dinosaurs had lasted long enough and hurled Chicxulub. What happened was not the end of the world. Mouse-like things survived the catastrophe and we finally appeared.
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> dhw: We have only disagreed when you insisted initially that the cell does not have the equivalent of a brain (the inventive mechanism), and subsequently that all the necessary information for evolution from bacteria to humans was preplanted in the first cells, apart from what was needed for minor adaptations. If there is a black hole in our knowledge, let us not imagine that we know what we do not know.-How does one hypothesize without a degree of imagination, once chance is removed from consideration?
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> dhw: That does not alter the fact that it is perfectly reasonable to discuss how evolution works without having to discuss the origin of life. -When your personal zygote got started it created you, a very enjoyable you, from my perspective. That is a continuum. Life started and we are here. The requirements of original life set the mechanisms in place for evolution. One can conceive of a non-evolvable life, just single cells never combining. But they did, so the ability must have been built in.
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> dhw: So leave Darwin and OOL out of it, and keep a nicely balanced, agnostically open mind about the range of an IM's capabilities. You know how important it is to stay balanced!-Balanced? You have closed out possibilities. Where did life's information come from? Spontaneous generation? With only chance, law or design available to you, your choice is 'I won't choose'. Your IM is purposely very inventive and independent to avoid considering God in any meaningful way. Back to the pickets! I started where you are in your thinking. I explored science and found a belief in God is highly reasonable. Follow my guidance. I advocate God not religion.