Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, December 30, 2016, 13:05 (2673 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We both admit we have no idea why the weaverbird nest is so complex, but it is. However its complexity would test boy scout's skill in knots. Now you are suggesting God gave the bird, and you've given the idea before, the knowledge to create the nest. Probably in a layer of its genome? That type of 'intelligence' to automatically create the nest is really instructions from God to follow a plan only a mind could create. Just as in bacteria we see intelligent reactions to stimuli which must simply be implanted instructions from God. Same application of theory.

For several years now, following the premise of cellular intelligence, I have been suggesting (theistic version) that your God may have given cells/cell communities an autonomous inventive mechanism. The weaverbird’s nest is my favourite example, because it has no conceivable link to the production of humans, which according to you was God’s motive for the evolutionary bush. You insist that only God could design the nest, though you don’t know why he did so. You also insist that God programmed the first cells with solutions to every problem bacteria might face for the rest of time, along with every non-dabbled innovation, lifestyle and wonder you can think of. I find this somewhat less convincing as a hypothesis than my own. A few days ago, however, you actually condemned my hypothesis as illogical and atheistic, and out of the blue introduced the atheistic argument that the human retina is illogical.

DAVID: Atheists like to point out the human retina as illogical, when research shows it is a wondrous design. I still maintain God is behind all complex designs. A semi-autonomous inventive mechanism for complex advances may exist, but it is highly theoretical, with no evidentiary support.

The unjustified atheistic criticism of the human retina does not make my hypothesis illogical or atheistic. Meanwhile, the hypothesis that your God personally designed or preprogrammed the first cells with every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in life’s history is highly theoretical, with no evidentiary support.

DAVID: Free-wheeling means the organisms are possibly free to invent and try out modifications, perhaps though epigenetic mechanisms, but God reviews and exerts final design formation. […]
dhw: Being possibly free to do their own inventing and trying out would require the means to do their own inventing and trying out. That freedom would therefore require an autonomous inventive mechanism, because if it was not autonomous, it would not be free. […] Either the mechanism is free and therefore autonomous (UNTIL it is dabbled with) or it is preprogrammed. “Semi-autonomous” is sheer weasel.

DAVID: Since I think God is in full control, there is no weaseling, just theorizing what organisms might try on their own.

Do please theorize further. How do organisms “freewheel” or try things on their own if they not have a mechanism that enables them to “freewheel” or try things on their own?