More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, August 11, 2015, 14:37 (3182 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Tuesday, August 11, 2015, 14:45

I'm combining various posts, as they are deal with the same subject,-dhw: 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.
DAVID: Your problem as an agnostic is that you want exactitude at every level of discussion. I can only reach certain conclusions that will have fuzzy edges, but are the best fit for what I observe, some of which is based on previous decisions. My viewpoint is a series of conclusions, which can be changed as science advances.-Your problem as a theist is that you want exactitude at every level of discussion that entails a different view from your own. I am unable to reach certain conclusions because I do not regard the fuzzy edges of one hypothesis as any less fuzzy than those of other hypotheses. Your conclusion that God preprogrammed the first cells with every future innovation, lifestyle and constructed home, or personally intervened to organize them - like your conclusion that God's purpose in starting life was to produce humans - has nothing whatsoever to do with science, and so I doubt very much if it will change as science advances.
 
DAVID: Does initial life start with information in DNA or not? The controls of all subsequent life is based on this question. Epigenetic changes appear to modify the expression of DNA genes, but not to change the underlying DNA. What cells can add is modulating information, not the basic start of life information.-Your “basic start of life information” is a billion and one programmes in the first cells which will control all subsequent life by automatically and mindlessly changing the underlying DNA in all their descendants; mine gives the first cells an intelligence which has a vast potential for changing the DNA as their descendants learn to cooperate in new combinations and in new environments, collecting more and more information as they do so. -dhw (under “Reply to Tony”): Most people would say our inventive mechanism is the brain, and my version of the cellular inventive mechanism is the equivalent of the cell's "brain".
DAVID: You sound like the Tin Woodman or Scarecrow, can't remember which, in the Wizard of Oz: "if the cells only had a brain".-It's the Scarecrow, and the irony of the matter was that the scarecrow was actually the smartest of them all. Thank you for an excellent analogy.-dhw: (Under "Extended Evolutionary Synthesis") You are - thank heavens! - more polite than Dawkins, but perhaps my use of the word will make you hesitate to dismiss completely the many years of research into what after all is a highly specialized subject. I am not denying your right to your opinion - I just wish it was a little less firm!-DAVID: But I've read Shapiro's book and still have the same conclusion.-I have read your book, and remain an agnostic. What does that prove? It's true that conclusions depend on how we evaluate evidence and arguments, but I would feel very uncomfortable dismissing the conclusions of experts in such a specialized subject, particularly when the only argument you seem to offer is that from the outside one can't tell the difference between intelligent action and automatism. (A determinist could use the same argument against free will, but you would expect a bit more than that, wouldn't you?)
 
dhw: I like the example of the Egyptian plover and the Nile crocodile because it doesn't involve biochemical relationships - only communication and cooperation between the two organisms.
DAVID: Of course you like it. Cooperating animals are light years apart from symbiotic biochemical relationships.-The example is still one of symbiosis, which simply entails interdependence and mutual benefit. I developed the point below: -dhw: Not so complex, but perhaps a guide as to how the process develops. Yes, all symbiotic relationships raise the chicken and egg problem, but I don't agree that each organism has to plan its response in advance of the experiment. I don't see why they shouldn't (sometimes) follow the same path as we often do, when we set out to see what will happen if....The first step might simply be communication and an agreement to cooperate. Tony's explanation (if he rejects autonomous intelligence) apparently entails God's preprogramming both variations of their respective prototypes at the same time,-DAVID: I'll buy Tony's approach, but not yours which uses comparisons to how humans approach the problem. The symbiosis involves intricately planned biochemical interactions.-Tony's approach entails separate creation of every prototype. Since when did you buy separate creation as opposed to evolution? Perhaps your constant focus on humans as the be-all and end-all, different in kind and not degree, blinds you to the fact that if humans evolved from earlier forms of life, they may have inherited certain behavioural traits, and these might include intelligent experimentation. When pressed, Tony himself has admitted that he is not prepared to say whether these biochemical interactions are preprogrammed, dabbled, or the result of God giving organisms the ability to work it out for themselves, because “we don't understand the process or the mechanism so a definitive statement is premature.” What part of his approach do you now buy?