Different in degree or kind: Sapiens begin brain use (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, October 27, 2016, 10:34 (2737 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: And I keep repeating David Raup: extinction are 'bad luck' from extreme environmental changes, not inadequate organisms. Adequate organisms live in adequate comfortable environments. The dinos weren't prepared for Chicxulub. Should God have prepared them?
dhw: [..] luck clearly plays a crucial role in the process of natural selection which determines survival and extinction. Lucky for us that chance didn’t send along a Chicxulub times 50, or all God’s meticulous plans would have been pulverized. A strange way for an almighty power to pursue his fixed “goal” (producing us humans) – but I suppose you will say that you can’t always understand your version of your God’s logic.
DAVID: And it is reasonable to assume God sized Chicxulub perfectly as part of the plan.

One moment your God leaves survival and extinction to chance via environmental changes, and the next he’s deliberately “sizing” Chixclulub so that…what? It would knock out the dinosaurs but not affect pre-pre-pre-pre-humans? That’s not bad luck, then, it’s your God’s planning. We now have evolution perfectly planned and depending on bad luck, but who am I to question your version of God’s logic?

DAVID: God makes it all work properly to reach the evolution of current humans.
This previous post explains how God might do it:
The real IM?; horizontal gene transfer (Introduction)
by David Turell , Tuesday, October 11, 2016, 19:06

It explains one method by which organisms evolve.

Your comment: It is obvious that evolution can advance with the phenomenon of HGT. It can be debated whether the first cells had this ability or whether it developed later,which brings us back to pre-programming or dabbling by God.

The fact that evolution can advance through horizontal gene transfer has absolutely no bearing on whether your God pre-programmed/dabbled organisms or endowed them with the ability to negotiate their own gene swapping. Our exchange then was as follows:

DAVID: I do agree with you that the abilities bacteria have in HGT and in the presence of alternative metabolic pathways many ways to respond to stimuli and environmental changes. I don't see how that implies they have innate intelligence. It may look that way to you but to me it can all be automatic.

Dhw: I am happy to concede that it “can be” automatic. What I don’t like is your constant insistence that it IS automatic. Your posts are riddled with this dogmatic assertion. If behaviour looks intelligent, and if scientists do tests and conclude that it is intelligent, I am prepared to believe that at the very least it might be intelligent.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep going back to earlier posts, as these will only lead us back to the same arguments. However, it’s a good way of distracting attention from the latest unfathomable logic by which your God meticulously plans luck.