Animal Minds; how much can we learn about them? (Animals)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 10, 2015, 16:30 (3052 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Modifications are not inventions, and the major question would be how the proto-pattern originates. Modifications also require intelligence, but I'm afraid your “onboard restriction instructions” simply take us back to what the nature of the organism allows, plus the restrictions imposed by the environment.-The one-toed horse is a modification in the way that I theorize. The whale series requires God. In my thinking it is as simple as that.-> dhw: But I am inclined to think that the earliest birds would also have had the autonomous intelligence to invent their proto-nests, later modified by Wally and others, rather than God having to preprogramme them or give them private tuition.-Without any evidence, your suppositions and mine are just that. Most bird nests are simple pallet-like structures with a circular pattern from blue birds to eagles. I've seen them. Wally Weaver's nest is not in the pattern. As the outlier he is difficult to explain. I've seen his nest in my travels. Since it takes most of his life to build, it doesn't demonstrate any economy of action, which one ould expect in an evolutionary process.
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> dhw: As a matter of interest, do your ID scientists specifically claim that God preprogrammed the first cells so that evolution would produce human beings plus multiple other organisms, lifestyles and natural wonders whose purpose would be to feed humans?-Many of them don't accept any aspect of Darwin's theory, are not sure evolution occurred as envisioned by you and I. They tend to deride theistic evolution, as does a recent book on the subject(I haven't read it).-> dhw: And do they claim that God created bacteria as automatons and not autonomous beings?-That is their attitude as I interpret it.