By FRANS de WAAL on animal cognition (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, April 23, 2016, 13:09 (3135 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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. - DAVID: Your delving is what I called exactitude. You are asking questions for which there is no answer so far, and there may never be. My theory accepts that humans arriving is an extraordinary event, that could only happen by a mind planning it. Really that is as far as I can go. The process of complexification in evolution, which need not have happened, is not explained by any current natural theory and you have accepted that statement. Leave God out of the equation and tell me how it happened? No one can. - Yes, I like exactitude. Your theory does not “accept” but proposes that humans arriving is an extraordinary event, as if it were somehow distinct from the extraordinary event of all life arriving and evolving; and it proposes that God (“a mind”) planned it all. I do accept that the process of complexification is not explained by any current theory, including your own. And you have brought God into the equation but still can't tell me how it happened, and even complain when I dare to ask you!