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

by dhw, Tuesday, December 15, 2015, 22:13 (3267 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The bottom line is that we do not understand the need for such a complex nest. That is the perfect image for the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution. Why is it illogical for the weaverbird to build such an unnecessarily complicated nest, and yet logical if your God designed it?
DAVID: You've neatly sidestepped the issue of "was it built in stages or all at once?" My highly pertinent questions lead to a logical conclusion: it had to be planned in advance.-How on earth do you expect me to know if it was built in stages? However, a nest is not like an organ, which either functions or doesn't. For all we know, the complexities may well have been added in stages, and as Matt has suggested, generations may have learned by observation. Meanwhile, you have not so neatly sidestepped the question I asked you, in response to your point that such a complex nest was unnecessary. Why would your God create such an unnecessarily complex nest when his aim was to produce humans? 
 
dhw: If it's illogical for the plover to fly 2000 miles, why did your God make him do it? Once you question the logic of these natural wonders, you are actually questioning your God's logic... 
DAVID: Here is the wide gulf of our thinking. I'm not questioning God's logic. Only He could plan such amazing jumps of complexity in lifestyles.-You have not made the connection. You have asked why weaverbirds build such unnecessarily complex nests and why plovers fly such vast distances, and you insist that God made them do it. So I look forward to hearing why you think your God made them do such unnecessary things.
 
dhw: That would apply to every new species, including the earliest hominins and their successors. If they were specially designed, so was the duckbilled platypus, which according to your logic suggests that God's purpose was to produce the duckbilled platypus. 
DAVID: Logic demands that God did all of the designing, to explain the complexity. Evolutionary theory as you and I view it requires a drive to complexity and challenges by environment to cause adaptive responses. Where did a drive to complexity come from? Why did humans arrive when there is no demonstrated requirement or need? Simple: God did it.-It is possible that the drive to complexity came from your God. I have even given you two alternative theistic hypotheses that allow a special place for humans. You could not deny their feasibility, and both of them got you off the hook of having to explain the necessity of the weaverbird's nest and the plover's flight (not to mention the unrequired arrival of the duckbilled platypus) for the production of humans. Please note, this part of our discussion is devoted to your personal reading of God's mind, not to God's existence. 
 
dhw: I also noted Noble's admiration for McClintock and Shapiro - two champions of the concept of cellular intelligence.
DAVID: I have the same admiration.
Dhw: I know you do. That is why it is all the more surprising that you reject their views on cellular intelligence as “absolutely wrong”.
DAVID: Same answer: intelligence and intelligent design look the same.-How does that justify dismissing the conclusions of such respected scientists as “absolutely wrong”? Why not stick to the 50/50 you agreed to in the past?