Humans, Dogs and oxytocin (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 29, 2015, 15:03 (3342 days ago) @ David Turell
edited by dhw, Tuesday, September 29, 2015, 15:14

DAVID: All you seem to see is a complex bush of life inventing whatever with no purpose.
dhw: On the contrary, I see purpose everywhere. It is twofold, and I have mentioned it many times: survival and improvement. Every form of life pursues these purposes in its own way; some succeed and some fail.-DAVID: This is just a restated legalistic form of natural selection on an individual basis. It doesn't answer the question whether evolution as a mechanism has a purpose. I think it does. Your definition does not tell us why evolution advanced beyond the bacterial state, when bacteria are the most successful life form to ever appear as life began. -I don't know what you mean by “legalistic”, but of course natural selection decides what succeeds or fails. Life only exists “on an individual basis” (i.e. through individual organisms), and each organism has its own purpose. We believe evolution began when single cells combined. Bacteria survived, but the new forms led to improvement, and that is the answer to your question “why”. As for a divine purpose, you are welcome to impose your anthropocentrism onto your God, but even an agnostic can find other possible explanations: he created an autonomous inventive mechanism without knowing where it would lead, but it's been fun to watch (still watching) or it's become a bit of a bore (given up, gone somewhere else). That would explain both the higgledy-piggledy history and the lack of divine presence. (You think he's hiding, but absence could be a sign of departure or non-existence.)
 
DAVID: If you ignore all the weird side twigs, no chance reason appears for the line that eventually lead to conscious humans. On a survival basis, it should not have gone further than lions and apes. -As you say yourself, on a survival basis it should not have gone further than bacteria. Why ignore the weird side twigs? According to you the whole of evolution except for humans consists of side twigs! So why did your God plan them all? Here's your weird answer: 
DAVID: Your 'survival' interest requires regular meals, which require a balance of nature.-Nature has a history of unbalance in which whole species disappear because they don't get their meals, or because of other environmental changes over which apparently your God has no control despite his careful planning. However, if you truly believe he planned all the dead species and non-human innovations and weird lifestyles and side twigs so that humans could have enough to eat, so be it.-DAVID: I don't believe in his [Darwin's] theory.
[DAVID, 21 September: I accept evolution. I have my own theory as to how it works.] -I presume you mean you do believe his theory of common descent, but you do not believe his theory of gradualism and random mutations. -DAVID: The concept of evolution was bandied about for most of the century before Darwin. He did not invent the concept that we evolved.-That does not invalidate the theory. -DAVID: His theory doesn't explain evolution. He popularized the idea as a chance mechanism while Wallace, who did most of the observation work for him at least recognized the probable need for design. I simply accept the probability of evolution because of the fossil record following a progressive time line. -Darwin was travelling the world, observing species and working on his theory long before he knew Wallace. He joined HMS Beagle in 1831, when Wallace was eight years old! In fact it wasn't until 1858 that Darwin realized through their correspondence that Wallace was coming to the same conclusions as himself! Origin was published in 1859. This is not a very fruitful line of discussion, is it?