Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 21, 2021, 01:25 (1192 days ago) @ dhw

Magic embryology

dhw: 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?

Since I believe God speciates, He decided they were OK as waders

Snakes repel their own venom

dhw: 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?

The problem is only with the snakes who are protected from their own poison. We have venus trap plants who are protected from their own digestive enzymes, our stomachs protected from severe pH acid levels, etc. This exists all throughout biology. It requires simultaneous development, therefore design.

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.

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

I don't need to reply to your assertions God doesn't know what He is doing. Unexplained as yet is enough response.

As regards RNA folding:

dhw: 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.

The Darwinists asked the stupid question I didn't.

Balance of Nature

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

dhw: 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.

The issue is they have a specific God-given design with top predators for food supply.

Neanderthal birth canal differs

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.

dhw: 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.

I agreed to your compromise. My dualist soul uses my very intelligent brain.