More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 10, 2015, 14:38 (3184 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The programme has to be whatever directs the mechanisms to change the DNA (innovate). .... So either the undiscovered programme for all of these was built into the first cells (whose purpose was to produce human beings), or God (whose purpose was to produce human beings) stepped in and rewrote the programmes. And you have no idea how he might “step in”.-DAVID: The first cells had DNA programs, no doubt. I think God wrote them. Codes do not write themselves. They are written with purpose in mind. And it is not 'how He might step in, it is whether he steps in.-You have neatly sidestepped the two issues. For the sake of this discussion, I am still wearing my theist hat, and the issue is not whether God wrote the codes, but whether God gave cells the intelligence to use and change those codes. Secondly, I challenged you on the practicalities of your hypothesis of God “stepping in”: “do you visualize him personally dipping into the innards of all the individual organisms concerned to change their programme, or sitting at some great console in the firmament, or doing it all by telekinesis?” You replied: “I have no idea how God does it.” That is why I complained that you were only willing to discuss practicalities when dealing with alternatives to your hypothesis. Double standards.-dhw: Theistic version of my hypothesis: God might have endowed cells/cell communities with the intelligence to direct themselves (though many fail - hence extinction) as and when the environment - which in your version God must also have preprogrammed/dabbled with, or left to chance - required or facilitated change.-DAVID: Not far from my thoughts. Intelligent instructions from the beginning and/or dabbling.-My hypothesis could hardly be further from your thoughts, though you are doing your best to obfuscate with this flabby use of “intelligent”. In my hypothesis cellular intelligence is autonomous and cells/cell communities are not automatons merely obeying God's instructions but are able (in some cases) to work things out for themselves as conditions change.