Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, August 14, 2021, 21:58 (987 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Same 50/50 appearance discussion is back. It is all automatic molecular reactions. Organic molecules have thousands of amino acids with regions of negative and positive electrical charges, hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions, and these electrophysical characteristics influence all the proper foldings, and all orchestrated by giant enzymes. A cell is a churning factory of these reactions, many of which I have shown singly in research design articles of single processes. Try and imagine thousands of these reactions going on in split-seconds constantly in each cell. This is the biochemical view of emergent life. This is what we are usually superficially discussing. At these micro-second speeds it must be automatic or the cell crashes. We have discussed this superficially in theodicy, because of the required speed God knew in advance mistakes would happen and put in editing mechanisms.

dhw: A wonderfully detailed account of how cells function in all organisms including ourselves. But biochemistry does not explain how organisms, including ourselves, recognize new situations, process information, take decisions, and come up with new solutions to new problems.

Of course it is explained. All those reactions are automatic. As I said, back to 50/50

dhw: How can an autonomous (without outside intervention) ABILITY to respond to new problems and create new solutions mean automatically obeying instructions?

That is exactly what happens. Do you tell your stomach how to digest your luncheon curry?

The role of survival in evolution
dhw: You simply refuse to acknowledge the logical conclusion that if changes take place in order to improve chances of survival, and those changes result in speciation, then speciation (evolution) is a direct result of the quest for survival.

DAVID: Pure old Darwinism, undiluted. Survival is simply the onboard desire to stay alive. You don't know how speciation happens. My choice is God does it by design.

dhw: Nobody knows how it happens, but even if your God designs it, there is no escaping the fact that the quest to improve chances of survival leads to the physical changes which in turn lead to speciation. Please explain what other purpose you can see in your God’s transforming pre-whale legs into flippers before he told them to go into the water.

Exactly what I think happened. He gave them flippers for a water existence

Retinal design allows prediction of movement
dhw: ..once more: do your ID-ers believe that different degrees of vision etc. were all created at once? And do they believe that your God designed all major mutations before they were required?

DAVID: In my reading of ID, absolutely.

dhw: Please can you give us a reference from your reading where it is stated that the differences in degrees of vision, hearing and smell between different species were all designed at once, and that God performed operations on all species to change their bodies in anticipation of new conditions which did not yet exist.

All I can respond is the ID tenet, that irreducible complexity means designed all at once. And all us ID folks accept God as designer. It really explains all the huge gaps in the fossil record that bothered Gould so much.

Back to theodicy: fixing genome mistakes

DAVID: Once again, the theodicy theory I follow is so-called (by humans) bad bacteria are simply useful bacteria in the wrong place. Try having your usual E. coli in your colon enter your peritoneum. all hell breaks loose.

dhw: So your all-powerful, always-in-control God specially designed them to be good, but he designed them in such a way that he couldn’t stop them from turning bad, though he did his best, and when he failed, he left it to humans to do what he couldn’t do.

You can sneer, but it fits.

Neil Thomas
dhw: […] why do you consider open-minded agnosticism to be more rigid than fixed belief in God or no God?

DAVID: You have every right to be doubtful and I am totally comfortable in my beliefs.

dhw: So why are your fixed beliefs less rigid than my open-mindedness?

I recognize both rigidities.