Explaining natural wonders (Animals)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 26, 2017, 09:46 (2767 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I don't understand your problem with the word 'guidelines'. God undoubtedly works at the knot level and the species level, Either by direct design or by supplying guidelines.

A couple of days ago he didn’t work at the knot level, but let that pass. My problem with the word “guidelines” is actually your problem. You can’t tell me what these might be. You keep agreeing that organisms might have an inventive intelligence, but only if it is not autonomous, i.e. God guides it. So if, for example, the weaverbird’s nest was NOT programmed 3.8 billion years ago and your God did NOT give weaverbirds private tuition in knot-tying, the only guidance I can think of is if the poor old bird gets his knots wrong and God tells him to twiddle to the left instead of to the right. If you really can’t tell me what you mean by guidelines, you should not be surprised that I have a problem with them.

DAVID (under “sea urchin defense”) Defense at a distance is a great concept. This is a simple early form of an animal with a very complex defense. Hard to imagine it evolved by chance.
dhw: Brilliant stuff! Thank you. Yes, it is indeed hard to imagine that it evolved by chance, ... Ah, maybe your God gave this animal the intelligence to design its own defence system. Just a thought.
DAVID: There is no brain, just a nerve ring to control the spines and defense system automatically, but magically, according to you, they can invent complexity. this system is too complex for stepwise development. It had to be put together all at once.

As always, you refuse to accept the possibility that organisms without a brain may be intelligent. I find it very hard to believe that your God would have taken the trouble to preprogramme this mechanism 3.8 billion years ago or give the sea urchin personal tuition, especially if all he wanted to do was design humans. I therefore look for an alternative.

DAVID: My dabbling or pre-programming hypotheses are just as will o' the wisp as your auto inventions. My positive view is God guided evolution. I just cannot give a positive description of His methodology, so I guess. As you are guessing.
dhw: Yes, we can only hypothesize on ALL of these questions, all our answers are riddled with uncertainties, and so belief should not turn into dogma.
DAVID: My hypotheses fit reality as I see it. Yours fit your view. I'm on one side of the fence. I'll stay there while you will stay on it. Reality of our positions.

A perfectly fair comment. From now on, then, we shall probe each other’s hypotheses with due recognition that not a single one of them can possibly be “carved in stone” (your expression), and so we must allow for alternatives.