Intelligence & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, October 15, 2013, 18:50 (4055 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You accepted all the criteria I listed as being appropriate for animals and plants, but even though they applied equally to cells (e.g. the ability to process and exchange information, communicate with other organisms, take decisions etc.), you excluded them for no reason other than the fact that you believe cells to be preprogrammed automatons.-Cells do not have abstract thought or self-awareness. They work automatically. note how far my agreement goes.
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> dhw: We are going round in circles. You assume that the huge communities of cells which can cooperate in order to produce consciousness (you don't know how) can't produce new organs ... although even with your divine preprogramming this is precisely what they do.-No they don't do it by themselves. They follow s program handed to them. Take a bunch of workers to a pile of lumber and ask for a house. They will ask you for plans. - 
> dhw; So your God's preprogramming of every organ and every innovation you can think of is the only reasonable hypothesis. I wonder how many biochemists agree with you.-Most biochemists (90%) are atheists. You are back to Darwin .
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> dhw: You may propose that God preprogrammed it all, someone else may propose that God gave cells (and humans) the ever evolving ability to invent things for themselves, someone else may propose that the ability evolved of its own accord, and someone else may propose that it all began with a huge stroke of luck. Proposals of this nature do not arise from knowledge of cellular biochemistry ... they are all speculative hypotheses to explain the inexplicable.-Yes all speculation, but if you try to compute the odds for each of these based on a knowledge of biochemistry, arising as an 'ability evolved of its own accord' or 'stroke of luck' bringss us back to chance which even you will not accept.