Humans, Dogs and oxytocin (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 22, 2015, 12:23 (3349 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Aw shucks! So back we go to your God preprogramming the weaverbird's nest into the first living cells for transfer through billions of years and organisms, or alternatively making a special visit (dabbling) to the prototype weaverbird to teach it how to build its nest, because without it he could never have produced humans. Oh, it would have been so much simpler if the mechanism God might have given to life did it all by itself!-DAVID: Aw shucks yourself! I don't know God's mechanisms, but you keep trying to get me to tell you how He did it. I simply believe God guided evolution, without worrying about details. As an agnostic you sure worry a lot about God's machinations.
-All theories depend on details. When I have suggested that evolution is guided by individual intelligences that begin at cellular level and follow their own individual path of development, you have demanded details, including evidence of cellular intelligence. Preprogramming and dabbling were your ideas not mine, as is your central theme of humans as the ultimate purpose. You've taken to using “guided” as a nice nebulous term which, understandably, you'd rather not define, but how else could your God “guide” evolution? If you cannot come up with any rational, believable, detailed explanation of how this guidance might work, is it not possible that your theory is wrong? The aim of this forum, which you have done more than anyone to fulfil (and I am hugely grateful to you for that), is to provide insights into the nature of the universe we live in, in the hope that we might advance just a little in our joint quest for some kind of truth. After all your herculean efforts to explain the complexities of design as evidence for your theory, how would you respond to an atheist who said: “I simply believe chance guided evolution, without worrying about details”?