More Denton: Reply to David (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, August 18, 2015, 12:27 (3175 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: ...Do you honestly believe your God designed the weaverbird's nest, the spider's silk, the Monarch's lifestyle, the plover's migration, the wasp's parasitism plus all the other existing wonders you have listed for us, plus all the other wonders that have become extinct, in order to feed humans?-DAVID: Everything that is animal has to eat something. These hierarchies of edibles are necessary. the energy to live has to come from somewhere. Why the lifestyles are so complex, I don't really know, but they seem to aid in survivability which is an obvious purpose. -You don't try to read God's mind, you don't know know why the lifestyles are so complex, and you don't know why so many species and lifestyles have come and gone, and yet you think you know that God preprogrammed the first living cells so that billions of years later a wasp would lay its eggs on the back of a spider to provide a food chain for humans? If you acknowledge that survival is a purpose in itself, is it not possible that improvement might also be a purpose in itself, and that your God might have endowed the first living cells with the wherewithal to survive and improve without having to serve the purpose of providing humans with food some 3.79 billion years later? 
 
Our exchange on the subject of Chixculub can be reduced to the following:
 
DAVID: ...I agree with you, the environment on Earth drifts along and also is perfect to produce humans.
dhw: It is the drift that leaves your interpretation of God's intent at the mercy of luck. That is the point of the above paragraph about Chixculub.-DAVID: Again my point that God is probably fully aware of consequences.-To be fully aware of the consequences, he would have had to forecast all the uncontrolled environmental changes billions of years beforehand so that he could preprogramme the first cells to pass down all the automatic responses that enabled some organisms to survive while the rest perished. If he didn't do so, he was relying on luck.
 
DAVID: Bacteria live in all extreme environments because their adaptability allows than to do so. On this we both agree. I still think onboard information can handle all of it.-“Onboard information” sounds much more feasible than millions of tiny computer programmes for every eventuality, but that's what it means, since you insist that bacteria are automatons that can only obey God's instructions. -dhw: Once more: I am suggesting that all intricate and complex “behaviours” originated through the intelligence of cell communities, and when the behaviours, designs, strategies, lifestyles, and innovations of all kinds proved successful, they were passed on and became automatic. I do not believe that every generation of weaverbird redesigns the nest. However, these cell communities retain the ability to think for themselves when new problems arise. Ants are a wonderful illustration of this, because they work out new strategies when faced with new enemies.-DAVID: Yes, so you have told us. And I admit it is a possible theory, just not mine.-I have only ever asked you to admit that it is possible.