How children pick up a language: new review of Wolfe (Humans)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 09, 2016, 13:10 (2935 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Not enough time for Darwin’s randomness. But substitute intelligence for randomness and there is ample time. The intelligence you substitute is God’s. The intelligence I substitute is that (perhaps God-given) of the cell communities.

DAVID: You are proposing a magical kind of intelligence in your cell communities which is God-like. News species require very involved mental planning. Hard to avoid the need for intense planning for a new species, isn't it. Your argument sounds like a struggle to escape God.

I do not believe your God designed the weaverbird’s nest in order to keep life going for the sake of humans. Multiply that by a few million other natural wonders plus all the innovations. I offer an alternative. You agree that organisms have the ability to adapt and that some are intelligent (though not humanly intelligent). Some scientists tell us that microorganisms are also intelligent. My hypothesis that innovations are designed by the organisms themselves is therefore not based on faith in magic, acknowledges involved planning and the possibility of God as the inventor of their special forms of intelligence, and fits all the facts that we know about the history of life.

dhw: None of this means that saltations have to take place in large numbers of organisms all at the same time, as opposed to one or just a few individuals, and there is no issue between us on the subject of gaps. A saltation is a jump, and we agree that Darwin was wrong when he said that nature does not jump.
DAVID: Refuted in Wistar.

I can only find a refutation of random mutations (chance) as the producer of life’s complexities – which you and I have also long since agreed on. Please give me a reference to Wistar refuting the idea that speciation occurred through a few individuals who passed on their innovations to future generations. (In any case, what possible evidence could you and they have?)

dhw: We can only speculate in human terms, and why shouldn’t we? If, as you believe, we are in his image, why should that NOT mean that we have some of his attributes? Your speculation that he is without emotion has no more evidence than mine that he could have emotion.
DAVID: As a person like no other person, we can only speculate on His reasons by looking at his works.

I agree. And it is not unreasonable to assume that his works would in some way reflect his nature. How would any creator be able to create something he knew nothing about? Can you imagine your God observing his human creations and saying to himself in his native language: “Ugh, what’s enjoyment? What’s love? What’s laughter? What’s sorrow?” You say “we communicate with God”. How, if he hasn’t a clue what we’re talking about?

dhw: And many people think God loves them. Why is your emotionless God more likely for you than theirs or mine, and why do you think God wants relations with us?
DAVID: All of our conclusions can only be speculations. Relationship involves His consciousness and our consciousness.

Obviously you can’t have a relationship without consciousness meeting consciousness. Why does that make your view of an emotionless God more likely than any other?

dhw: I argue that each organism designs what suits it best (= an improvement for them). You argue that God designs them all for the sake of humans. I can’t see the relevance of the weaverbird’s nest to the production of humans.
DAVID: I've explained balance of nature is necessary for all to eat. It is obvious humans are the pinnacle of complexity and the end point for evolution. We communicate with God. I don't know why you cannot see that it all fits together. Can I prove it, as you want. No. Is it a reasonable construction, based on reality. Yes.

To answer each point in turn: I’ve explained that the balance of nature keeps shifting, and it certainly doesn’t enable all to eat, because over 90% of all go extinct. Whether humans are the end point is open to question, but if we meet up a billion years from now, perhaps you’ll be able to say, “I told you so.” Do you have access to God even though he is hidden? You tell me that it fits together, but when I analyse the contradictions, you tell me I am humanizing God, only interpreting or, best of all, God’s logic is not the same as ours. I do not expect you to prove it – nothing can be proved in this field of our existence, which is why we can go on discussing it endlessly. (And I should add at this point how much I appreciate these discussions and especially the enormous range of educational material you provide to accompany them.) Is yours a reasonable construction, based on reality? I think your arguments for believing in a God are indeed reasonable. But I find your interpretation of evolution’s history impossible to square with the history of life as we know it. In a nutshell, I do not believe for one second that God specially designed the weaverbird’s nest, let alone specially designed it in order to balance nature so that organisms could be fed in order for humans to appear.