Biological complexity:how toxoplasmosis parastizes (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, November 26, 2016, 13:03 (2702 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID:(Under "fine tuning"): Billions of solar systems follow a design for solar systems. Why does that design exist? A reason for their existence is not yet apparent from our scientific observations, but like the human retina which looks totally wrong, reason may be found.

Dhw: Sometimes theists and atheists seem to me like mirror images of each other. Here is Dawkins: he says there is nothing beyond the physical world “except in the sense of natural phenomena we don’t yet understand. If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural.” (God Delusion, p. 14)
Not yet apparent…may be found…don’t yet understand…we hope eventually…Faith is a wonderful leveller. However, one of you must be groping through the right fog!

DAVID: Don't leave yourself out of the mix, groping or not from your picket fence!

Quite right. I am groping. But if I'm groping through a fog, I can't be sitting on a fence. Sometimes metaphors just don't work, do they!

dhw (under "toxoplasmosis"): It really is amazing how all these different organisms find all these different ways of surviving. How each way originates we don’t know, but each one must have had a first. No disagreement from me over saltation, but what are you implying? Do you think your God preprogrammed the first cells to pass on this particular lifestyle to the toxoplasma gondii, or personally intervened to guide little toxy into its first cat? If not, what is your alternative?

DAVID: Another alternative: God programmed kitties to present the proper immunity info to the toxies and invited them in for beneficial reasons not apparent to us now. The why cats only (?) is itself a mystery. Pregnancy and immune deficiency are the only bad side effects for humans. So far this defies theological theories.

A lovely response! I reckon it applies to all the natural wonders, including my favourite nest. I like your “so far” too, which fits in nicely with the Dawkins-Turell sequence above. Of course, I can offer you a theological theory, but I know you don’t want to hear it.