Logic and evolution: DARC mutation and malaria lessens (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, September 26, 2020, 19:30 (1309 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: My suggestion about bacteria and viruses is that most of them have purposeful functions, as you know.

dhw: There is no disagreement here. The question is why a God who wishes us no harm would design the harmful bacteria and viruses.

Again, theodicy. It comes down to God knowing what He is doing, even as we can question why.

DAVID: Of course convergence is an issue as brilliantly raised by Conway Morris. You always slip into the position that cell intelligence may be from God. He and I feel it is from God. Depends on which side of a coin you favor.

dhw: We agree on convergence, which is not an issue between us. Whether God designed every example of convergence or gave cells the intelligence to solve each problem as it arose IS an issue, but this has nothing to do with bad viruses and bacteria and the good folk of Cape Verde having evolved a defence against malaria. You are dodging again.

How do you know the Cape Verde folks didn't have a chance lucky mutation? No God. It happens.

DAVID: Note the Y chromosome article and the counter point to Gould and woolly Darwin pontifications, none of which hold water. As for DARC we all recognize an occasional chance mutation is beneficial. And therefore note, not God-given. But this is not speciation where God rules.

dhw: See the relevant article on Y and on Gould. Are you saying here that the Cape Verdian immunity was due to a chance mutation? This opens the door to your original “errors” theory that chance mutations changed the course of evolution. How “occasional” is occasional, and if chance can create a defence against a disease which even now we humans have trouble controlling, then why stop there? I seem to be the one who detects purpose, while you endow your God with less and less control: off go the molecules, disobeying your God’s instructions, and now we have beneficial mutations resulting from chance.

I have God in full control of his systems, other than molecular errors while living. I've said above the Cape Verdian mutation could well be chance. But this is not full blown evolution of species, which my 'original theory' concerned, only an adaptation, which go on all the time, mainly epigenetically. Don't overstep your argument. God speiates.