The simplest explanation? (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, October 08, 2020, 13:15 (1290 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The point at issue is cellular intelligence versus preprogramming and/or dabbling – as in the blue-eyed example above.

DAVID: All of the skin and eye purposeful changes are due to migration. Possibilities are chance mutation, epigenetics, or God. I tend to favor God, but the other two are possible. It is an adaptation within species and they are not fully explained either.

I agree that migration to new conditions would have triggered the changes. I think we both reject chance. You have your God directing the colour changes through “instructions”. “Epigenetics” does not explain what mechanism brings about the changes, and “God” does not explain the mechanism either. Do you favour a 3.8-billion-year-old programme of instructions for eye-colour change, or your God performing eye operations on all the migrants – or is there any other way he could dabble? My alternative is cellular intelligence (perhaps invented by your God).

dhw: You attacked Shapiro’s theory on the grounds that no one had “advanced” it. His theory does not preclude God. So are you really telling us that advances in research are advancing proof that God preprogrammed or dabbled every species directly, as opposed to designing a mechanism (cellular intelligence) which autonomously created new species – i.e. without “guidelines” from him?

DAVID: Yes. The new designs in new species are so complex they require hands-on designer work. Cells don't have the innate intelligence and God won't hand it off to a do-it-yourself system without guidelines.

It is your assumption that your God wouldn’t do such a thing, and I really don’t know how research can “advance” that theory. Your assumption that cells don’t have the intelligence can hardly be said to have “advanced” the theory that God preprogrammed or dabbled every single life form, econiche and natural wonder in the history of life.

dhw: Repeating the fact that you don’t believe the explanation does not explain why you think it is not feasible! How would you react if an atheist dismissed your excellent arguments in favour of design with a bare “It's not feasible because I do not accept it”?

DAVID: I don't accept it under the valid reason the advances are too complex for a secondary mechanism to handle it. It must be direct design. You prefer God-lite for some weird reason.

dhw:“God-lite” is a silly expression. If God exists, he would do what he wants to do, and you are in no better position to tell us his nature or his wants than I am. For “some weird reason”, you want him to preprogramme or dabble 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and their food supplies and their natural wonders although all he wanted to do is directly design humans, and every single one was part of the goal of evolving or feeding humans who weren't even there, and you want him to preprogramme or dabble bad bacteria and viruses, though he wishes us no harm. Now tell me what is “weird” about a God who wants to avoid the dullness of a Garden of Eden, and therefore creates a system that will run itself and produce the vast and ever changing bush of life which we know to be the history of the last 3.8 billion years. (See also “Theodicy”.)

DAVID: Again your humanized soft version of God, whom I view as precisely purposeful, and fully discussed in "God's error corrections II". Please, let's keep the evolution discussion all in one place for clarity and time saving.

I started this thread with an explanation of life’s history that covered evolution and theodicy. I’m happy that you moved theodicy to another thread, but I’m afraid that only leaves evolution! I don’t know how often you want me to repeat that the version of God I present here is “fully purposeful”, and I have challenged your term “God-lite” as a silly way to dismiss my presentation of a God who knows and gets precisely what he wants. Does my explanation fit the facts of history as we know them or doesn’t it? If it doesn’t, please tell us why.

DAVID: I have given you full reasons why I do not accept your humanizing version of God and your strange view of God not running evolution as you think He should.

It is no more humanizing to suggest that God did not want control than to suggest that God did want control, and I fail to see why God not wanting a dull Garden of Eden (your expression), and therefore allowing cells to do their own designing, is any stranger than God not wanting a dull Garden of Eden, trying and failing to provide a cure for diseases arising out of the system he designed, and not wanting to do harm but proceeding to design harmful viruses and bacteria and “natural” disasters. (See “Theodicy” – I’m afraid there is no avoiding such overlaps.)