Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 16:26 (1006 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Is it hard to conceive that God created each succeeding stage by modifying the previous stage? Thus each advance is based upon the previous and can appear from the outside like the Darwin 'descent by modification' evolution you accept? I'm saying the same thing but I use God as the driver, and certainly not the need for survival Which is your unproven common sense reasoning. I hope you can really recognize the limits of common sense that directly tells me the sun revolves about the Earth.

dhw: We are not talking about the sun and the earth! Please tell us why you do not think adaptation to new conditions, new methods of catching prey, defence strategies, dealing with disease etc. have no connection with survival, and why you are convinced that less efficient life forms are just as likely to survive as more efficient life forms.

You are still confused about my view of survival as it relates to evolution. All organisms try to survive as you describe, and forms live or die by bad genes or bad luck with Raup supporting bad luck. Species die out for many reasons.

T-cells

DAVID: They are designed to be as responsive as you describe.

dhw: Thank you. Exit the theory that cells are only designed to obey instructions set out for them before changes are required (= pre-planning).

DAVID: I love your wishful thinking I've changed.

dhw: If organisms are designed to RESPOND to something new by making changes, as opposed to the changes being planned and made BEFORE the arrival of something new, it is obviously nonsense to say they have already been provided with the responses before the new situation arose! (See also "tomatoes" on the ID thread.)

Go back and look at all the entries on the amazing immune system. we are born with general protections and are designed to learn about every invader with newly developed responses we create. We are designed for future problem's by making new answers de novo.

Theistic evolution vs Darwinism [...]

DAVID: 'Common descent' is the result/appearance of God designing successive stages of life.

dhw: Common descent is the theory that every organism apart from the first descended from earlier organisms. It is not life that undergoes successive stages, but organisms. If you say your God created species “de novo” there can be no link with preceding organisms.

DAVID: We don't interpret de novo the same. I have been using it in the 'anew' sense, and see that is not strictly correct.

dhw: “De novo” does mean “anew” in the sense of starting all over again (repetition), and that is certainly not what you meant. Another meaning is doing something different right from the beginning, which again does not = common descent. I think you mean that your God took existing creatures and then modified them in different ways. Unfortunately, however, you keep seizing on the Cambrian and telling us that all those species came out of thin air and not out of antecedents. So you believe in common descent except when your God creates species out of thin air.

For Darwin and I the Cambrian is still out of thin air. The huge Chinese Ediacaran and Cambrian findings have simply made the gap sharper. Haven't you noticed what I present?