The simplest explanation? (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, October 01, 2020, 17:42 (1297 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Cells certainly process information and act on it, following directive information to do so.

dhw: “Directive information” is a substitute for your normal word “instructions”, and that means God either preprogrammed every solution to every problem and every innovation 3.8 billion years ago, or he directly dabbled them. Why is that more likely than him designing cellular intelligence to adapt and innovate for the rest of time?

I'm back to: only God can speciate.

DAVID: I accept Shapiro's theoretical attempts, but have seen no progress on that score.

dhw: What progress has been made on the theory that 3.8 billion years ago God provided all cells/cell communities with instructions on how to respond to all situations for the rest of time except for those which required his direct intervention (dabbling)?

DAVID: Apples and oranges. Shapiro is a science theory, not a theological discussion.

dhw: How cells function is not a theological subject. If you claim that apart from what your God dabbled, right from the beginning the very first cells already contained instructions (“directive information”) on how to solve all problems and to turn into every single species and to design every single natural wonder in the whole history of life, there must be somewhere in the cell for those instructions to be stored – just as there must be somewhere in the cells where decisions are taken. Other than finding the relevant mechanism, what other kind of “progress” do you expect either theory to make?

Understanding all the layers of control in the genome is still being discovered. Genome wide networks of cooperating genes is one of the latest approaches in the literature. One gene, one function is really dead as an approach:

https://academic.oup.com/bib/article/21/4/1224/5522018 Topic:

Genome-wide functional association networks: background, data & state-of-the-art resources

"Abstract
The vast amount of experimental data from recent advances in the field of high-throughput biology begs for integration into more complex data structures such as genome-wide functional association networks. Such networks have been used for elucidation of the interplay of intra-cellular molecules to make advances ranging from the basic science understanding of evolutionary processes to the more translational field of precision medicine. The allure of the field has resulted in rapid growth of the number of available network resources, each with unique attributes exploitable to answer different biological questions. Unfortunately, the high volume of network resources makes it impossible for the intended user to select an appropriate tool for their particular research question. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the underlying data and representative network resources as well as to mention methods of integration, allowing a customized approach to resource selection."

DAVID: I agree this is the world He designed/wanted. He got here by tight design control. The freedom of molecular action is a requirement of God's design. He wanted it because it is the only way it can work under optimal design.

dhw: The question is how far that freedom might extend. And “tight design” raises the horrible problem of theodicy. If your God created this good and bad world by “tight design”, it can only mean that apart from the disease-causing “errors” in your theory (which were unavoidable and which he tried in vain to eradicate), everything else, including bad viruses and bacteria and meat-eating and possibly also natural catastrophes (as opposed to man-made) was directly designed. Maybe it was, but you can’t believe your God would deliberately want to harm us, can you? Nasty problem for you. Easily solved by my “simplest explanation”!

As long as there are folks like me, theodicy will be present, and handled by believers by accepting God knows what He is doing.