Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, January 26, 2017, 11:38 (2640 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Neither BBella’s hypothesis nor mine has anything to do with chance, and both quite explicitly allow for God. The debate is indeed about the mechanism, and you clearly prefer not to acknowledge the anomaly in your argument as explained in my post above, as well as in your non-acceptance of mine on grounds of no evidence while you accept your own although there is no evidence.

DAVID: If God is the IM He is in total control, as I've agreed. No chance involved. I'm the one who raises the issue of pre-planning or dabbling since I can see the possibility of both. Free-wheeling autonomous IM's are not in my considerations, ever! You are the one finding dilemmas for me!

You quite rightly say that the outward appearance of intelligence does not prove that an organism is intelligent – it could be a robot, obeying instructions. (That also applies to humans.) In the case of bacteria, you resolutely reject the very possibility of autonomous intelligence. However, if you accept the possibility that your God IS the IM inside every organism, then you must accept the possibility that the outward intelligence of bacteria IS intelligence. It’s your God responding, for example, to each challenge as it arises, or exploiting each opportunity – but directly from inside each organism. And since some bacteria fail to adapt while others succeed, and the same applies to all species (with a 99% extinction rate), you’ll have to agree that the divine IM works differently in individual organisms as well as in different species. Therefore each IM is an autonomous piece of your God. And you can’t possibly tell the difference between it being an autonomous piece of your God and an autonomous intelligence invented by your God. And so, according to you, an autonomous, intelligent, inventive mechanism is possible if God IS the mechanism, but it’s "not in your considerations, ever!" if God has invented it. I wouldn’t call that a dilemma. I’d call it disjointed thinking.