By FRANS de WAAL on animal cognition (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 15:24 (3142 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw: Of course single-celled organisms had to wait for the right conditions before organizing themselves into more advanced creatures. And cell communities appear to use evolutionary processes. And even your God didn't transform ALL existing single-celled organisms into more advanced creatures. What applies to your hypothesis applies equally to mine.
> DAVID: Whoa! Don't you realize all the work that bacteria do is still necessary?
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> dhw: I have reproduced the whole of our exchange, to show that this response is a complete non sequitur! Whether God “guided” evolution or gave organisms the intelligence to direct it themselves, evolution could not take place until conditions were right. It is therefore absurd to suggest that the drive to complexity or improvement should have manifested itself earlier if organisms were in charge of their own evolution.-A complete misinterpretation of my comment: I simply pointed out that bacteria continue to do their thing, because they can. It also happens it is required to keep the Earth in a livable condition for us advanced creatures, so luckily they keep going. The bacteria don't need to create the complexity of multicellularity, and we don't know why it happened. Yes it did happen when the conditions became inviting, but that doesn't mean it had to happen. Therefore something drove it that could plan and design it. God.
> DAVID: As He fine-tuned the universe, I would think all the attributes of "Rare Earth & Privileged Planet" apply as signs of his guidance.
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> dhw: So God organized every environmental change throughout the history of evolution?-In view of fine tuning, most likely watched over it.