Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Saturday, February 27, 2021, 09:20 (1148 days ago) @ David Turell

Extreme extremophiles

DAVID: God made survival a sure thing for living organisms, a nuanced difference in thought

dhw: Survival is anything but a sure thing for living organisms. That’s why 99% of them have died out. […]

DAVID: If it is not a sure thing, explain all the extremophiles I've presented. Life is built to survive, so it is not a problem in my view. Survival, Darwin style, does not drive evolution. we've covered my views before.

I answered this last time:

dhw: Life is not an organism. Organisms adapt or die. Extremophiles do indeed make the concept clear: some organisms can adapt, and others can’t. Those that can, survive. Those that can’t, do not survive. It’s what you like to call the truism of the Darwinian approach, but the very mention of Darwin seems to make you believe that a truism can’t be true.

DAVID: Survival is a foundation stone in your Darwin approach. I don't think it is a proven concept at all. Survival of the first is circular reasoning. Sounds good. Very weak.

You mean survival of the fittest, and I have just said that it is a truism, and I agree that it is circular reasoning, but you simply ignore the fact that it is not “life” but life forms that survive or do not survive. If you do not agree that organisms adapt in order to survive, please tell us what other reason you think they have for adapting.

Dualism (Swinburne)

DAVID: Of course a sick brain creates a sick consciousness while living. Freed of a sick brain, the soul returns to normal, as above.

dhw: Of course. But if a sick brain causes sick consciousness, how can anyone possibly say “nothing that happens in my body/brain entails or is entailed by what happens to my conscious life?” You are agreeing with me and disagreeing with Swinburne. […]

DAVID: I pick and choose with Swinburne. My statement above stands.

And your statement above confirms that in direct contrast to Swinburne, you believe that what happens in your brain affects what happens in your conscious life (“creates a sick consciousness”). Why don’t you just say you agree with me, as you did on the “theodicy” thread?

How algae find light

DAVID: We both know organisms can make minor adaptation. I don't follow your imagined theories.

Why “imagined”? If my theories are “imagined”, so are they all, including your own. If, as you agree, your God gave organisms the autonomous ability to make “minor” decisions, why do you consider it to be beyond your God’s powers to enable them to make “major” decisions? Don’t forget that even for you, the intelligent behaviour of cells has a 50/50 chance of being the result of their own intelligence.

cetaceans get much less cancer

dhw: […] I am left wondering why, if humans were his only purpose, [your God] would design special cancer protection for cetaceans and not for us. In fact, it makes me wonder whether we were not his only purpose, or whether he actually didn’t design special cancer protection, but like most other individual characteristics of individual species, this feature was simply the result of decisions taken by the cell communities of different life forms as they sought to improve their chances of survival.

DAVID: You just can't help attacking Adler and me. Your cell committees (note, it's my term) are trained by God to adapt in minor ways.

“Trained”? What does that mean? He popped in to give cetaceans courses on how to prevent cancer? All because their immunity was essential to his pursuit of his one and only goal, which was to directly design us? I am not attacking Adler. You have told us repeatedly that he does not deal with your theory of evolution. And I have always noted your term “committee” to replace my term “community”. It’s what one might call your effort to ridicule the theory by “humanizing” cells!

Packing DNA and repairing it

DAVID: Corrected typos in the title. Surprised you didn't note the cellular intelligence provided by God's coding DNA to handle this.

I really can’t comment on all the articles you post, and there was nothing I could add to this one. But I like your new comment. I have no problem with the idea that your God might have been the designer of cellular intelligence.

Extinction

QUOTE: "[…] its discovery proves the bird was only thought to be extinct because people were looking for it in the wrong place. Its existence also raises the question of how many of its species are living in Borneo, and whether it is at risk." (David’s bold)

DAVID: 'At risk' is based only upon human judgement, which is this case is obviously faulty. With 99% extinct, why should we fight to save species other than the ones humans are known to be currently damaging??

I don’t understand your comment. Of course only humans can judge if it’s at risk. And what is wrong with trying to save a species? If those that we are damaging deserve our efforts to preserve them, why shouldn’t we try to preserve other species as well?