dhw (re “watched over”): A delightfully vague expression. Either he organized the environmental changes without which evolution could not have happened, or he didn't.-DAVID: Why do you insist on exactitude. We have made inferences based on what we know and see. God is hidden. His motives are hidden. Only the conclusion that it takes a mind to do the designs has strength.-dhw: I agree with your last observation. But you do not stop there, and my insistence is a response to your insistence. Here are the exactitudes you insist on: God's intention in creating the universe and life was to produce and/or feed humans; organisms are incapable of organizing their own innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders, and so he had to “guide” them all; therefore all of them, extant and extinct, must have been preprogrammed or “guided” by God for the purpose of providing for humans. If you insist that God "guided" evolution, why is it wrong to ask whether he also "guided" the environmental conditions without which evolution could not have taken place?-DAVID: You don't seem to realize the list of exactitudes above you have elicited from me are from your questions demanding exactitude. I've simply concluded that evolution is a process guided by God. Since humans are a very surprising result, that Gould says is a "glorious accident", it is easy to assume that humans appeared not by chance or accident. My theory really goes no further than that. Further it is obvious that speciation is not by chance, and planning for it requires a mind. One- celled organisms can run their lives with simple reactive chemicals, as our cells do. 'nuff said.-Your “simple” conclusion gradually expands (“further...Further…”) to end up with precisely the theory I outlined above! Any theory needs to be tested against whatever facts are known, and you do not hesitate to challenge alternative theories such as chance and autonomous intelligence on the grounds that they do not correspond to the facts as you see them. And even if you were to confine yourself to “evolution is a process guided by God” (which you don't), you can hardly complain if I ask what “guided” actually means in relation to innovation, lifestyle and natural wonders, bearing in mind that evolution has to conform to the restrictions laid down by the environment. But I do understand your reluctance to delve, when delving brings out so many difficult questions.

Here is a review of an author who partially agrees with de Waal: - https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23030771-700-making-squirrels-count-and-other-un... - "Frans de Waal's position is clear from the very title of his book: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? Here he surveys the history of the research, and it doesn't reflect well on researchers. Until recently, most studies have measured animal intelligence by human standards, which is silly. “It seems highly unfair to ask if a squirrel can count to 10 if counting is not really what a squirrel's life is about,” he writes, noting that squirrels (and some birds) show prodigious memories for where they have hidden nuts. - "De Waal's book is full of examples of scientists asking the wrong question of their experimental subjects. For many years, researchers thought chimps were unable to recognise individual faces, but, as de Waal notes, the tests used photos of human faces. When his colleague used photos of chimp faces instead, the animals did just fine. - "Elephants can't recognise themselves in a mirror? Sure they can - if you give them a mirror big enough to show more than just a leg or two. As researchers learn to design more appropriate IQ tests that meet the animals on their own terms, more and more claims about things only humans can do are proving false. - "Citing example after fascinating example, and often drawing on his own decades of experience, de Waal makes a case for intellectual sophistication in many animals. Alex the African Grey parrot, who died in 2007, could be shown a mix of colours and shapes and correctly answer questions like “how many green squares?” And wild chimps carry hammer stones for hours to crack nuts they only expect to find. Macaques will share food with a companion in their troop, unless they know he or she has recently eaten, which shows they understand others may have different feelings. - *** - "Byrne's concern is with one particular part of the intellectual landscape, a skill he calls “insight” - an animal's ability to form and manipulate ideas in its head. Many apparently sophisticated behaviours need not imply any insight at all, he argues. When a band of chimps cuts off every escape route from a tree and thus kills a monkey, it may look like a planned, coordinated act, but each chimp may simply be maximising its own chance of getting the monkey by finding a spot where it has no competitors. Similarly, seemingly insightful social awareness (say, recruiting higher-ranking allies to avoid being picked on) could be explained more simply by a good memory and quick learning. - "Still, Byrne finds a small kernel of genuine insight in at least a few non-human animals: great apes, elephants, crows and perhaps whales and dolphins all recognise themselves in a mirror, show some empathy for others and some awareness of death. This suite of abilities suggests they have at least a minimal sense of self. It's reassuring that Byrne, for all his scepticism, ends up somewhere close to de Waal. - "The most interesting part of Byrne's book, though, comes at the end, where he tries to understand why insight might have evolved in one lineage - the great apes - while it is lacking in monkeys. It can't be a matter of social complexity, because monkey societies are often just as large as those of apes. - "Instead, he argues that insight helps apes learn the complex manual procedures - with or without tools - that help them process foods that none of their competitors can use. It's an intriguing idea, although he sidesteps the question of why elephants and crows, which don't process their food the same way, also show evidence of insight." - Comment: Belief in common descent must include recognition that humans have an animal body. Studies of rat organs tells us how our organs work. Our brains are much more powerful than animal brains, but based on the same patterns of organization. No wonder animals show minimal insights when compared to us, but those insights are reasonable to expect when seeing the same basic organization with much smaller frontal lobes. Prefrontal and frontal lobes make the difference in kind.

Another review of his book refuting his claims of animal intelligence:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/47452/title/Opinion--Assessing-Fr...

"The essential burden of science is to replace dogma, sentiment, and superstition with an as-far-as-we-now-know theory based on verifiable facts, all the while striving for objectivity. Yet, in his work, de Waal replaces one dogma—the Cartesian/behaviorist stance that animals are mere oblivious response machines—with another.

"Following “Charles Darwin’s well-known observation that the mental difference between humans and other animals is one of degree rather than kind,” de Waal notes that there is no fundamental difference between man and beast—not even mentally. The problem is not the idea, it is that de Waal posits this as a preordained fact to be illustrated rather than a hypothesis to be tested.

"In order to make this stick, de Waal redefines intelligence as whatever mental capacities a given species needs within its own Umwelt—its own limited experience of the world. The beauty of this position is that all species are equal, which is why he abhors the term “stupid animal.” Taken on their terms, judging from their needs, all species are optimally intelligent. The downside is that this perspective robs “intelligence” of all meaning, reducing it to the Darwinian notion of relative fitness. Unsurprisingly, in de Waal’s world, even the most mundane of animal achievements are labeled “extremely advanced,” “impressive,” or “sophisticated.”

***

"With great gusto de Waal tells us of “Alex,” the enigmatic miracle parrot who did arithmetic and juggled abstract concepts with the best of them. There is an intriguing clip of Alex, who died in 2007, in which the animal’s only spontaneous activity is to repeat time and time again that it wishes to be returned to its cage. To no avail, there is always one more chore, and Alex complies like a good little parrot. But the animal wasn’t always so obliging.

"This behavior of Alex reveals an essential flaw in all those attempts to stimulate animals to show behavior they don’t show of their own accord (and I’m sure de Waal would agree on this point): it is all chores. None of the apes that were trained to become lingual would ever initiate anything like a conversation. Their utterances typically served to secure an immediate reward, usually food or attention—Nim for one, often begged to be tickled. Once a project was over, not one ape continued to use its acquired abilities spontaneously. This raises serious doubts as to whether what we see is actually more than rote learning, tricks we teach the animals to perform by bribing them with food and attention.

"Let us not forget that what we get to see, both in popular accounts and in scientific journals, are invariably high-pressure compilations of highlights.

***

"De Waal ignores all this, just like he does not mention the constant pressure needed to keep animals in training with the program. And so he does precisely that which he reproaches others for: he puts the goal posts just where he wants them and then concludes: See? I told you so!"

Comment: I work with horses. The reviewer has it exactly. Animals are trained to respond exactly as you want them to. They are conscious, respond to command, and have no self-aware consciousness. Nothing like humans. We are not degrees of difference. We are different in kind.