More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, July 24, 2015, 13:42 (3201 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Friday, July 24, 2015, 13:55

DAVID: One last time. In the Cambrian, from no predecessors, animal appear with fully developed functional organ systems, and those systems are integrated and cooperating. It is beyond my belief system that this occurred by cooperating cells simply jumping together in an organized fashion. Yes increased oxygen allowed the advance, but cellular adaptations through epigenetics are so far demonstrated to be small changes, not giant leaps implied by the fossil record.-You persist in repeating the problem, whereas I am summarizing possible solutions. I understand perfectly well why you reject my hypothesis: there is no evidence that cell communities are capable of extending their known adaptive abilities to innovation. Nor is there any evidence of a divine 3.8-billion-year computer programme for all the innovations. Nor is there any evidence of a supernatural being reaching inside existing cell communities to give them a shake-up. Your belief system can apparently cope with the last two, but let's not pretend that they are in any way more rational or feasible than my alternative (which is a hypothesis, not a belief).-dhw: Just as the mechanism for adaptation is precisely targeted, so too would the intelligent cell community use prevailing conditions to work out new ways of exploiting them. Humans do the same (and also fail as well as succeed).
DAVID: Now you are equating cellular planning with the human ability to plan! Really?-You always seem to think that such statements mean “equating” other organisms with humans, but no one is saying that their intelligence, let alone their level of self-awareness, is the same as ours. However, their form of intelligence enables them to accomplish astonishing feats (Nature's Wonders) that may be unique to themselves and require “exquisite planning”. (Part of our own uniqueness lies in the fact that with our superior intelligence, we can emulate and even transcend their single abilities.) I simply don't accept your contention that weaverbirds, ants, plovers, spiders, monarch butterflies etc. are incapable of designing their own habitats and lifestyles. And if I am right, then their inventive intelligence may mirror that of all cells/cell communities.
 
dhw: Exquisite planning applies to all organs, organisms, and Nature's Wonders. However, your assumption seems to be that only God and humans are capable of exquisite planning. 
DAVID: For me that is the natural assumption.-“Natural assumptions” are sometimes another term for preconceptions. Why should your God not have given other organisms the ability to do their own exquisite planning (as above)?
 
dhw: I'm glad you realize that your view entails informing professional biologists that they don't understand biologic complexity at the basic physiologic levels.
DAVID: That is not what I have said. They know physiology of cells as well as I do. I have a right to a different interpretation, as do you.-Thank you. That is much nicer than your assumption that a different interpretation from your own is based on ignorance or on being “blind to reason”. -dhw: All forms of communication and physical action, including our own, involve some kind of material process, but that does not explain the decision-making that precedes the communication and action.
DAVID: I don't follow this statement. Surely we all understand how humans investigate, conclude and plan from those conclusions.-When discussing cells, you always focus on the chemical processes that accompany the actions they perform, but these do not explain the decision-making process that leads to those actions. Our own actions are also accompanied by chemical processes, but you acknowledge that these are preceded by a mental decision-making process, even though we do not know the source of the intelligence that conducts it. You take the latter for granted, but refuse to look beyond the chemical processes when it comes to cellular decision-making.
 
dhw: But to return to “the main thrust of my comment” which you are still dodging, and to use your pinnacle metaphor quite literally, the fact that Everest is the highest mountain does not mean that your God's purpose in creating the universe was to produce Everest.
DAVID: You are reduced to word games. How many dogs (with their noses) climb Everest. By the way I've flown by the peak. We humans do know how to fly and flapping winged machines are being planned as we debate, according to an article a couple days ago.-You had claimed that humans were “vastly more complex in physical and mental abilities”. We do not have the physical ability to fly. It is our vast mental superiority that enables us to invent machines which can make up for our physical inferiority. You have also missed the point of my Everest metaphor. Even if we humans are the most intelligent organisms on Earth, that does not mean your God's purpose in creating the universe was to produce us.