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

by dhw, Friday, December 11, 2015, 20:32 (3268 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.-I agree that the one-toed horse is a modification, and it does not require the inventive intelligence we see in the whale series. In my thinking, the modifying process and the inventive process would (I use the conditional tense, because it is a hypothesis) both require cooperation between autonomous intelligent cell communities. I wouldn't call either of them simple, but I wouldn't call a 3.8-billion-year old computer programme for every evolutionary innovation simple either.-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... -DAVID: 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 would expect in an evolutionary process.-I have seen pictures of Wally's nest, and I fully acknowledge its extraordinary nature. I am not an expert in weaverbird psychology, but I can't help wondering why your God would go to such trouble to preprogramme the first cells with weaverbird-nest instructions, or give private nest-building tuition to the weaverbird, and I just don't believe that its nest is vital for human food supply. Like the rest of the higgledy-piggledy bush apparently geared to the production of humans, “it doesn't demonstrate any economy of action, which one would expect in a specially designed process.” But then I am not an expert in God psychology either.-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?
DAVID: 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).-So when you claim that you follow and agree with their theories, these do not include the one about God preprogramming the first cells with all the evolutionary innovations from bacteria to humans. So I wonder if there is any scientist on Earth who supports this theory.-dhw: And do they claim that God created bacteria as automatons and not autonomous beings?
DAVID: That is their attitude as I interpret it.-Thank you for the important, eye-twinkling modification.