We are not nearly as determined by our genes as once thought.

This is from a Susan Mazur interview with Denis Noble, at https://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzan-maz...84211.html:


I think this points out the central mystery of biology, the mystery of what really is "life", i.e. what is the essence of a living organism that makes it more than simply the sum of its parts (that is, the individual cells and the genetic data in its DNA). During development what is it that actually does the finding, the reading, the translating, the implementing by regulation, etc. etc., of the genetic data and instructions? Whatever it is it gives the strong impression of being an agent or entity of some sort with properties including intentionality and purpose.

Interesting he wrote the Music of Life, calls to mind Josephson & Carpenter's paper on the possibility of music connecting to a Platonic realm, and this realm influencing biology.

I wonder if they've all ever talked...in general I feel that some amicable dialogue between varied figures would allow stronger/better work from each of them...reading Transcendent Mind and I can't help but feel a few of Tallis' essays might've made the difference despite Tallis being an atheist who doesn't believe in an afterlife.

I typically don't comment on these types of things. However, in my opinion, this is wildly inappropriate. It seems that you are using people’s genetic deformities as a way to suit your own agenda, which is quite repugnant. There are other ways to present your own worldview without resorting to his kind of behavior.

Well *gentle rebuttals seem not to make a bit of difference to nbtruthman.  He still prefers to cherry pick the evidence that suits his agenda. Nbtruthman' keeps stating there's intention. He's also finalizing the argument and ignoring harsh realities. My intention by using such photos is to argue there is no intention. If there is as he states what is the intention of deformities?

* You're rather new  and likely are not familiar with one one the most gentle of former members Arouet here and at Skeptiko. He consistently extended the olive branch only to be slapped with it repeatedly by many members.

I like this fellow's delivery 
Lewis Black

[Laird]

surely a link to the images would be possible with a warning that the link contains images of still birth mutations that may be particularly gruesome to some readers.

Seems like a pretty reasonable request. Steve001, what do you think?

Well *gentle rebuttals seem not to make a bit of difference to nbtruthman.  He still prefers to cherry pick the evidence that suits his agenda. Nbtruthman' keeps stating there's intention. He's also finalizing the argument and ignoring harsh realities. My intention by using such photos is to argue there is no intention. If there is as he states what is the intention of deformities?

* You're rather new  and likely are not familiar with one one the most gentle of former members Arouet here and at Skeptiko. He consistently extended the olive branch only to be slapped with it repeatedly by many members.

I like this fellow's delivery 
Lewis Black

If you’re one goal here is to persuade proponents on your side, you are wasting your time. Skeptics and proponents alike have already taken their stances on these issues, and I highly doubt anyone has had their opinion changed. Nbtruthman will continue to believe what he believes like you will. I agree with the messsage you are trying to convey. I also struggle to understand how there could be intention in evolution when nature is so barbaric and cruel. Like Max_B has suggested, providing links to such deformities would still get the point across without having to resort to shock value.

I also struggle to understand how there could be intention in evolution when nature is so barbaric and cruel.

This seems a subjective assessment, to view nature as barbaric and cruel. Of course you can find evidence to support that view. But someone else might find nature loving and caring, and produce evidence to support that view. This is leading into some of the deeper questions not about evolution, but more about our own existence, questions which may have endless debate with no firm conclusion. It may be too that the views we hold about the world we live in, and our relationship to it, may change with time, it needn't be fixed. Personally, I've shifted through many viewpoints over the years, sometimes gradually, imperceptibly, other times rapidly over a short timescale. At any rate, as I get older, I tend to take a gentler view of things, even though the same difficulties and hardships still exist, how I respond to them is different.

Intention doesn't necessarily mean a completely benevolent omnipotent Creator, or even a singular entity. (For example Josephson's conception of Biological Observer Participation.)

Even if Intelligent Design became the accepted position in academia the question of the designers would still exist. I suspect before that happened you'd have people arguing for Nagel's idea of teleological principles that are simply brute facts...which gets us into questions of how a brute fact is an explanation but people often don't stop to make the same inquiry about natural laws so...

Thankfully I have Steve001 on ignore so don't need to look at the gruesome pictures he used to make a point. The point could have been made without pictures and could have been debated but, instead, he drew attention to himself which, of course, is all he wants. He generally doesn't really argue points, he makes assertions which don't deserve a response because he doesn't bother to back up the assertions with reasoned argument or accompanying information. 

Now, to the point of intention. There is a simplistic way of looking at the intelligence in the system - for want of a better term - and there is a big-picture view. I prefer the latter but it comes with some philosophical/spiritual dependencies. The simplistic view is one of a designer god with human-like motivations, feelings, desires and failings. The god of the Old Testament, if you like.

My view is that this world, this universe is part of a bigger reality which is, itself, ever evolving. There is a creative freedom in that evolution which involves what we, from our limited perspective, see as mistakes, blunders or even horrors. If that evolution is to be truly free, then it must be allowed to discover by what we judge to be success and failure. If there is some kind of god then it is certainly not the omniscient kind otherwise there would be no point to evolution at all. Perfection is probably unattainable and there probably is not such a perfect god.

It is the same argument as asking why God doesn't stop wars or suffering caused by we humans. Wars are of our own making and ours to stop. The big picture I mentioned is that bigger reality by which we learn and evolve over a vast, almost incomprehensible time-span. The spiritual aspect is that we probably have many lives in which to explore the myriad of ways, both "good" and "bad", by which we can create and reach for perfection, unattainable though it might be.

I use terms like "my view" and words like "probably" liberally and intentionally because I have no certainty. This is the way I explain such things to myself. It would be easy to simplify matters and reduce purpose and intention to the whims of a capricious god or to blind and random processes but, at some point, I decided that purpose was evident in this world I inhabit and that being so, I had to look for a philosophy to explain it. Unlike Steve, I have no certainty and cannot make so many assertions.

If you’re one goal here is to persuade proponents on your side, you are wasting your time. Skeptics and proponents alike have already taken their stances on these issues, and I highly doubt anyone has had their opinion changed. Nbtruthman will continue to believe what he believes like you will. I agree with the messsage you are trying to convey. I also struggle to understand how there could be intention in evolution when nature is so barbaric and cruel. Like Max_B has suggested, providing links to such deformities would still get the point across without having to resort to shock value.

It seems that I am somehow giving the impression to some here that I think a benevolent Deity deliberately plans and creates Nature in all its both splendor and horror, which obviously leads to some serious contradictions. This is just a straw man created to beat to death, at least for Steve001.

The birth deformities are just the tip of the iceberg of the many cruelties and uglinesses that exist in addition to great beauty. My position is just that some form of sentient intelligence (or more likely intelligences) must be behind macroevolution (especially the origin of the major complex innovations seen in the origin of the phyla and classes). It is obvious that whatever their nature, in addition to having an aesthetic side, they either do not share our repugnance and fear of ugliness, deformities, disease, natural disasters and suffering, or they do not have the power to eliminate them. 

The main point I try to make and support in detail is that there is manifold objective evidence for the existence and work of these creative intelligences in evolution, regardless of how we as humans would regard some of their choices from the moral and human values standpoint. 

As far as organismal development from fertilized egg cell to complete animal is concerned, it is obvious that whatever mechanisms are involved and whatever form of cell and collective cell intelligence is involved, it is amoral with no human value systems, and is not concerned about suffering - it is not any form of intelligence or sentient intelligence we could even remotely identify with. And it is certainly to be expected that any such incredibly complicated mechanism and associated development processes will occasionally have errors and faults creating things like horrible and cruel birth deformities. Murphy's Law always prevails and is especially evident the more complicated the machine becomes, regardless of there being some form of intelligence also involved in the process.

It seems that I am somehow giving the impression to some here that I think a benevolent Deity deliberately plans and creates Nature in all its both splendor and horror, which obviously leads to some serious contradictions. This is just a straw man created to beat to death, at least for Steve001.

It also seemed odd because we weren't even talking about ID but where there might be instructions for biological development. If anything your argument for the instructions being within the cell would be an argument against something like Sheldrake's morphic resonance, or so it seemed to me.