Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, January 06, 2017, 13:26 (2661 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: In order to decide whether an organism – ANY organism – is intelligent, we can study their behaviour by setting them problems.
DAVID: The same old problem exists. In an animal with a brain we can study their mental capacities as I've presented over and over, from insects like ants, to crows, to primates, but at the single-celled level we still have the problem of how much automaticity is present, all or some automatic.

We study the mental capacities of ALL organisms by observing their behaviour and/or setting them problems. You even keep telling us that animals with brains also have to be programmed or guided by your God to produce their natural wonders, so the “problem of how much automaticity is present” applies just as much to them as to bacteria. (And determinists will argue that the same applies to humans.) If an organism is able to solve problems that require intelligence, it is pure prejudice to insist that they CANNOT be intelligent just because they do not have a brain.

dhw; Neither of us can find any reason why your God could not have reached humans without whale evolution, monarch migration and the weaverbird’s nest. This suggests to me that the history of evolution was NOT geared to the production of humans, although in a theistic scenario it is quite feasible that (a) they might have been dabbled as an afterthought, or (b) your God might have had some vague idea of creating a creature resembling himself in consciousness, and might have spent a few billion years experimenting. What is your objection to these scenarios?

DAVID: Theoretically the all-powerful God of religions could have produced humans very directly, but we know He didn't. That is no reason to deny the idea that He had an evolutionary goal in mind, but used an evolutionary process.

You do not follow “all religions”, do you? What is your objection to the theoretical proposal that his goal was to produce a creature resembling himself, but he didn’t know how to do it and spent a few billion years experimenting? That gives you your evolutionary goal, and also explains the higgledy-piggledy history which is not covered by your own theory.

DAVID: My approach assumes God is always in control to guide evolution to reach the current human form, which I believe is the final step, with no further human change. Total control means pre-planning, possible dabbling, and some degree of free-wheeling modifications edited by God as He sees fit.
Dhw: Total control does not allow for freewheeling,
DAVID: Yes it does. The organism freely tries a change and God approves or alters the change. The initiative starts with the organism, not God.

That suits me fine. How does the organism FREELY try a change if it does not have an autonomous, intelligent, inventive mechanism?

DAVID: Humans were always the goal. I remind you other primates were living happily eight million years ago, without an advance to us required. But it happened. End of case.
dhw: That is the point at which, with my theist hat on, I must object to the extraordinary philosophical saltation with which you make this claim, as if all the arguments against it can be glossed over. No advance to any multicellular organism – including the whale, the duckbilled platypus, the weaverbird and all the dead dinosaurs – was “required”, since bacteria have survived perfectly well. The higgledy-piggledy history of evolution makes absolutely no sense if your almighty (= in "total control") God started out with the goal of producing humans.

David: Your theistic hat is always askew. You struggle to see the purpose I see. The requirement for the bush of life is balance of nature to supply energy for survival of life so evolution can cover 3.6-8 billion years of process.

Round we go in the same circles. Your God had to personally design the different stages of pre-whale, the monarch’s lifestyle and the weaverbird’s nest in order to keep life going so that humans could arrive? I struggle to see any logic in the purpose you see.

xxx

dhw: I shall have to respond to the “conscious universe” article tomorrow, as I am now off to visit my newborn grandchildren!
DAVID: Again congratulations as a proud Grandpa. But note, you are going to see a double miracle, the production of two humans from two eggs! All provided by God's mechanisms implanted into life, so complex, we understand only a tiny portion of it so far. How much complexity do you need before you surrender your agnosticism?

Thank you again. I am as awestruck now by the miracle of life as I was when I first saw the father of the twins 50 years ago. The wonderment extends to all forms of life, down to the tiniest from which I believe we have evolved. What triggered life? According to you, something even more miraculous: a universe-making, universe-encompassing, unknown and unknowable, hidden, conscious mind that was never triggered by anything. Philosophical stalemate.