Different in degree or kind: Egnor's take (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 05, 2016, 13:34 (2971 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The analogous evolution of fish fins to legs, which you continue to ignore, suggests that major changes CAN take place in response to need, or do you think your God gave fish readymade legs before they ventured onto dry land? Sorry to keep repeating this question, but I am anxious to get an answer.-DAVID: You had answer several days ago:
Look at this article on walking fish. Large skeletal changes. Again a gap.-http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/01/14/262464764/first-land-walking-fish-loo...
 
The gap is on both sides of the transitional fish.-I read the article and quoted the following from it:
" 'It's what we've all been waiting for,' said Jennifer Clack, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Cambridge's Museum of Zoology in the United Kingdom. 'Until this discovery, we weren't able to see the changes by which the pelvic fins of the fish became much larger and more robust, and gradually turned into the tetrapod hind limb.' " (My bold)-You could scarcely ask for more positive evidence that the change in conditions (moving from water to dry land) created a need, and the body (cell communities) responded to the need by making changes to the structure. So did God change the pelvic fins into the tetrapod hind limb, and THEN fish found they could walk, or did fish attempt to walk and the RESULT was the hind limb? Did God lower the larynx etc. and THEN humans found they could talk, or did humans attempt to talk and the RESULT was the lowered larynx etc.?
 
dhw: On a theistic level, if your God gave organisms the power to alter their own structure, why do you assume he limited it to minor alterations? What evidence do you have for your own hypothesis of divine programming and/or dabbling? How did he do it? There is no answer, just your desire that your God should control every innovation and every natural wonder in the history of evolution.
DAVID: God just DOES IT, is my answer. by pre-planning or dabbling. I can't know which from the evidence we have.-So why do you ask me: “How does your 'need' approach make the jumps? There is no answer, just your desire that it can happen”. I can't know how from the evidence we have.-DAVID: You are assuming that unproven cellular intelligence can do all the complex planning for the complicated gap jumps. All we know is epigenetic minor adaptations, never species change. I know it is your theory, but it doesn't recognize the degree of mental planning involved to make the jumps.-As we keep repeating, NOBODY knows what causes innovations. I'm not assuming anything: the ability of cells to do all this complex work IS the hypothesis! It's a hypothesis, not an assumption. It is based on the fact that many scientists believe that microorganisms are intelligent, and on the fact that what you call epigenetic minor adaptations prove to us that there IS an autonomous mechanism by which organisms can change their structures (unless you are now going to tell us that God also preprogrammes or dabbles adaptations).
 
DAVID: Our consciousness appeared as the brain grew larger frontal lobes and received it.
dhw: If - in accordance with your belief in dualism - our brain received it, which came first, our consciousness or the brain?-DAVID: Remember I believe in species consciousness (Sheldrake) and universal consciousness with the brain as a receiver. Consciousness first. God-I don't know why you think you have to remind me when I am the one who keeps reminding you. Consciousness first: the brain changes AS A RESULT of having to accommodate enhanced needs. Consciousness first: the larynx changes AS A RESULT of having to accommodate enhanced needs (a wider range of sounds to express the wider range of experiences).