More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 03, 2015, 12:24 (3191 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Monday, August 03, 2015, 12:50

I'm transferring your "Tony" answers back to this part of the Denton thread. -TONY: ... don't all weaver birds create extremely SIMILAR nests? Is what we are looking at inventive, or simply variation on a theme?
DAVID: Thank you for this wonderful point. If weaverbirds set out to invent their nest design in a population of birds, one would expect several different designs instead of all the same...
dhw: Once a pattern is successful, it is passed on: this applies to habitats and lifestyles and (for David, not Tony) all the innovations that led from bacteria to humans. What designed these protopatterns?-DAVID: Of course 'once a pattern is successful it is passed on', but that fudges the issue. I've seen all sorts of birds nests that are successful for all sorts of birds. Why is each nest specific for each type of bird? It all makes evolution look patterned and planned or designed. Tony's point holds.-So we now have your God preprogramming the first living cells with every type of nest, or alternatively dabbling to instruct each species of bird how to do it. And that's before we even consider every animal and insect that also creates its own home and lifestyle. (I wonder how all this fits in with your belief that God's purpose in creating the universe was to produce humans.) My proposal: each type of bird has its own type of intelligence, and each originally designed its own nest to fit in with its own requirements. Once it had proved efficacious for the particular type of bird, the “blueprint” was passed on. Evolution is patterned and planned and designed by organisms as and when new patterns/plans/designs are needed or made possible.-dhw: Thank you both for your support. (Glad you joined in, David. Any chance of your informing Tony why you think he's wrong over common descent?)-DAVID: My view is firm. I believe in the science of aging fossils, even if the estimates vary by 10-20%. Over 3.8 billion years of life, the inaccuracies are of little import. There is a progression from simple to very complex, with gaps that refute Darwin and chance. Therefore evolution occurred but not as a natural process. It was guided by God.-This = options 3) and 4) in my response to Tony. Thank you.
 
DAVID: And this removes any sense of my agreement about your continuous use of the word 'autonomous' in regard to an onboard IM. In this scenario only 'semi-autonomous' works. -On 29 July you wrote: “We mortals cannot tell the difference between God helping organisms evolve either by direction or by an onboard mechanism for planning that He gives them.” I commented that it sounded too good to be true, and of course it was, because as usual you have gone scampering back to your nebulous “guidance” or “direction”, and “semi-autonomous”. Firstly, then, can you think of any form of guidance or direction that does not involve preprogramming or direct intervention? -Before you scurry back to another of your favourite hideaways: organisms can only act within the limitations imposed by their own nature and their environment. This does not mean they cannot do their own planning/inventing autonomously within those limitations. So secondly, how can an organism be said to “plan” or “invent” (you have accepted the term inventive mechanism) if it is preprogrammed or directed to act in a certain way? In other words, please explain what "semi-autonomy" means in this context.