Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 06, 2021, 15:34 (1056 days ago) @ dhw

Fungi helped plants

DAVID: The differing stimuli for plants is quite small: hot, cold, wet, dry , sun direction, bugs nibbling, fungi on roots helping. Your mountain is a molehill.

dhw: I am proposing that adaptation by plants and animals and even bacteria follows the same procedure: the cells make changes to cope with (or exploit) the new conditions. The different stimuli (including both dangers and opportunities) and the different problems have been changing through the 3.8 thousand million years of life’s history. According to you, the “molehills” become mountains if cells have to cope with or exploit them on their own – only your God can dabble or preprogramme the changes: even for minor changes he now has to provide an “algorithm” covering every eventuality! Why don’t you stick to your original, perfectly straightforward agreement that your God provided the mechanisms for change and “the organisms then use them independently as minor adaptations are required by changes”? Independence does not mean obeying instructions or choosing the right answer from a list of possible answers provided by your God. Finally, do you agree that the processing of information, intercommunication and decision-making are signs of intelligence?

I admit if one looks at all 3.8 billion years of God's evolution mountains as in the Cambrian Explosion, which, by the way, bothered Darwin more than you. And I'll stick by my theory that God: "provided the mechanisms for change and “the organisms then use them independently as minor adaptations are required by changes." I'm discussion the molehill daily changes and minor epigenetic alterations. You are attempting to change the purview of the discussion too all of evolution. Didn't work. Plants act intelligently by following God's instructions, all previously discussed.

Clear evidence of common descent
DAVID: I explain evolution as the work of God. You describe its appearance as history.

dhw: We both agree that the history is a bush of life with countless branches. I have no problem with the proposal that your God designed it that way. The difference between us is…SEE BOLDED THEORY. [Your God’s only purpose was to design H. sapiens, and so he individually designed millions of life forms, ecosystems, natural wonders etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans). And while I believe in the continuity of common descent, i.e. all species (except the very first cells) descending from earlier species, you believe your God created each one de novo, and for you this constitutes continuity.

DAVID: God makes it continuous.

dhw: How can it be continuous if he created every species de novo?

You make my point and strangely don't recognize that. Evolution is/was a continuous process because God designed the gap jumps.