Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 12, 2013, 19:46 (3817 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: It was the large human brain that was the equivalent of the dog's 125 million sensory cells, i.e. if God preprogrammed such an extraordinarily complex brain (or stepped in to make it separately), he must have done the same with such an extraordinarily complex nose. This is just one example among the hundreds you yourself have given us in which organisms come up with unique features or modes of behaviour. -You have given a proposal of how orgnisms might plan these complex behaviors, but plans can only come from intelligence to make a plan aforehand. How do the intelligent cells do it by hunt and peck, the only other way it can work? Especially in the time frame of the Cambrian?-
> When we say humans are intelligent beings, we don't separate them from their brains. DNA is part of the cell! You say all the information and preplanning is contained within the DNA. I substitute "the intelligent mechanism", and if that is in the DNA, so be it. You have absolutely no way of knowing whether all the information and planning is processed by an automatic machine obeying God's instructions, or an independent intelligence (possibly invented by your God, and as "touted" by numerous scientists I have cited) making its own decisions. Nor do I, of course, but I am merely considering alternatives.-As noted above, not intelligent cells are not a viable alternative. -> 
> dhw: We have both made the same point over and over again, and it gives just as much support to my alternative as it does to your God theory. The crucial change came when some cells decided to cooperate. .....And one experiment led to another, as different communities of cells created different forms of life. Cooperation is the key, and it does not in any way shut out your God, who could have given cells their ability to cooperate in the first place. It only shuts out your notion that God planted a few billion innovative and adaptive programmes into the first few cells.-Nail on the head: I have admitted in the past an either or. I cannot know if God implanted all the plans or interceded and pushed the cells to group together as organs by direct dabbling. Independence of God's options is not feasible as chance takes over. You just want intelligent cells with no theory of how they got that way.