Different in degree or kind (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 04, 2013, 15:13 (3819 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: May I ask you now why the distinction is so important to you?-DAVID: Because, if we are different in kind, then evolution is not a chance unguided process. The point Adler made.-dhw: Thank you. Could you not believe this if it were put to you that, despite our many similarities to our animal forebears, our level of consciousness is so much more advanced than theirs that God must have deliberately designed it, as he did their and our complex organs? This would give you all the advantages of the ID argument without the irrelevance of degree versus kind.-DAVID: But that is exactly the point Adler made. By showing it is obviously difference in kind, then the gap is huge and not bridged by simple evolutionary processes, requiring an intervention by God. Quite clear to me. Just as the Cambrian Gap suggests an intervention. The origin of life requires an intervention. The big bang looks like an intervention. Thus the evidence points to God.-The gap is huge whether you call it degree or kind. I agree that none of the gaps are bridged by simple evolutionary processes. That's why we have rejected Darwin's random mutations and gradualism, and have opted for Gould's punctuated equilibrium. There have clearly been jumps, but that is no reason to suppose that they were caused by the intervention of a mysterious, unknowable, hidden, self-aware whatever-it-may-be. We don't know the cause of the Big Bang, the origin of life, the cause of the Cambrian explosion, or the cause of human consciousness. They are a mystery which is not solved by substituting another mystery. Atheists have offered an equally mysterious alternative, and my panpsychist "third way" is subject to the same criticism. The evidence does not point to any of them. We don't know, we may never know, so it's all a matter of faith, and much as the various parties hate to admit it, none of these faiths has any scientific basis. They do, however, provide us with endless material for discussion!