Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, January 20, 2021, 11:15 (1185 days ago) @ David Turell

Magic embryology

DAVID: New needs require design and are the same as anticipating new species with different conditions as in the whale series.

dhw: New needs require a RESPONSE. You wrote: “Thus God has to do direct design at those times when the new needs are extremely complicated.” How can this be anything other than a RESPONSE to the complicated needs? ... I accept that the response is designed, but it is the exact opposite of design IN ANTICIPATION of new needs. You are tying yourself in verbal knots.

DAVID: I have an entirely unknotted view. God prepared the pre-whale a way to enter a watery environment. But He didn't change hippos!!! So they keep wading. God speciates.

What on earth have hippos got to do with it? Hippos managed perfectly well as they were. Pre-whales must have needed to change (it is not unreasonable to assume that at the time, water offered them better prospects of survival than land). How does that come to mean that God must have operated on their legs before they entered the water?

Snakes repel their own venom

DAVID: Your faith in cell intelligence is overwhelming, as you simply agree the poison appears with the solution at the same time with cell magic. My point is God design is required, cells are n ot ctaht smart.

I do NOT agree! My version is that ALL the snakes had a problem and subsequently solved it for themselves. If this discussion is to continue, we’d better clarify your own version: do you believe the cell communities of the eight snakes solved the external problem themselves (problem first, solution followed), but your God had to step in and solve the internal problem of the other two (designing problem and solution simultaneously)? Or did he step in to operate on all ten? If all ten, why are you bothering to distinguish between external and internal?

Darwin scientists find useless evolution

DAVID: What happened to perfect natural selection which always makes the right choices?

dhw: 1) If the molecules are useless, why did your God design them? 2) If they make terrible mistakes, why did your God design useless molecules to make terrible mistakes? 3) The article says that the molecules do not create any disadvantage, in which case there is no need for natural selection to get rid of them (an argument that Darwinists could also apply to junk DNA). 4) If it turns out that the molecules are useful after all, this will support the principle of natural selection. There is therefore nothing in the article that contradicts Darwinian evolution, but if the molecules are useless, they raise awkward questions for creationists like yourself.

DAVID: We don't know if they are useless, just currently unexplained. And you didn't comment on the genome Darwin nuttiness from yesterday: "Genome complexity: RNA folding" in the same vein.

And you have not commented on 1), 2), 3) or 4), which support Darwinian evolution and raise huge questions for your own theory. As regards RNA folding:

DAVID: I love the strange Darwinist discussion in bold. Folding and unfolding must have a reason and purpose. Why does it bother to form a knot in the first place, instead of directly forming?

Why do you expect me to answer your question? Do please explain why your God bothered to make RNA form a knot in the first place.

Balance of Nature

DAVID: Most ecosystems are important but happen accidently. […]

Ecosystems are important to the organisms that live in them! Your acknowledgement that they happen accidentally fits in with the apparently higgledy-piggledy coming and going that constitutes the history of life. This suggests that if there is such a being as God, he deliberately set up a system which would result in ever changing ecosystems and life forms without any specific plan.

Neanderthal birth canal differs

QUOTE: Babies didn’t need to twist, and heads emerged sideways instead of facing backwards. On the other hand, while this potentially meant that births could have been somewhat faster, with less risk of infants getting stuck, the babies’ longer skulls meant it was still a tight squeeze.

DAVID: if true why did our birth canal get so difficult in birthing? Their brains actually were bigger in size. But it appears our brains were more intelligent. There must be reason we do not yet know.

It’s always interesting to hear a dualist talk of the brain as the source of intelligence - it’s a good thing you accepted my materialism/dualism compromise! Why do you claim that we are more intelligent? Recent research suggests that they were just as intelligent as sapiens at the time of their co-existence. As regards your question, it’s just one more in the long line of questions arising from your theory that your God designed absolutely everything although you have no idea why. (See also snake venom, useless evolution, RNA folding, balance of Nature…)