More Denton: Last essay of a 3 part series (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, July 18, 2015, 01:34 (3207 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The leaps bother me and argue against common descent It is as if the inventive mechanism has guidance or pre-planning, which has been my constant comment.
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> dhw: If innovations work promptly - whether guided, preplanned, or invented from within - why should the leaps argue against common descent?-The leaps that we see are large changes, and, yes, they obviously survived. But large changes, obvious to me and others thinking like me, require planning to work on arrival. You are suggesting a plethora of larger changes so the best ones could survive, resurrecting natural selection to a major role. This is a major shotgun arrangement, within the short time involved of six million years to get humans. Not a likely scenario, when the evidence of a planning center in cells is not presently known or likely to be discovered as in the immune system I brought up today.-> 
> dhw: As I keep saying, innovations must work promptly or they won't survive. If the inventive mechanism guides the changes, what precedent tells you that 300,000 generations would not suffice? (Thank you to whoever invented the pocket calculator.)-Remember Lenski's work on E. coli, millions upon millions of generations and almost no changes. It takes several generations to fix a trait in humans, and that is the small stuff.-> 
> dhw:If the experiments are the product of an intelligent inventive mechanism, they would not be "unguided", and they would be motivated, just like ours, by the search for improvement.-So now you are proposing teleological cells 'mentally' motivated to search. Cells are passive, actively responding to stimuli, not out searching.-> 
> dhw: Yes, the patterns are obvious. It is also obvious that if common descent is true, patterns would be handed down. That does not alter the possibility that your God designed the inventive mechanism, and the inventive mechanism designed the patterns.-Thank you for recognizing the patterns, and partially accepting the idea that evolution might best work if guided.
 
> dhw: I don't know enough about Denton's work, but perhaps you can tell me if he ever talks of God preprogramming the first cells or dabbling with their make-up.-Denton is an M.D. and does research in molecular biology. In Evolution; A Theory in Crisis >, 1985, he uses molecular evolutionary chemistry to tear Darwin apart, pointing huge gaps in chemical changes such as with hemogolobin. In Nature's Destiny , 1998 , he takes the position that the universe is designed for humans, again with lots of chemical evidence. As you knows I follow his thinking and have read both books.
 
> dhw: I am far from convinced that this universe began 13.8 billion years ago. Even if the big bang theory is true, we have no idea what preceded it, and it could just as well have been an event within an existing, eternal and infinite universe. Eternity and infinity offer the same opportunities as a multiverse. The alternative is: “Either there is a God or there is no God.”-That is why Einstein didn't want to give up an enteral universe. but your objection to the Big Bang, is that it must have come from an eternal something. I agree and it appears that this universe had a beginning. From there our reasoning diverges. There is a God.