Explaining natural wonders (Animals)

by dhw, Monday, May 01, 2017, 08:46 (2762 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You are again avoiding the issue of supplying energy so evolution can proceed.
dhw: You are again avoiding the issue that all life needs energy, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with your theory that all life forms were designed by God, whose one and only purpose was to design humans.
DAVID: Once again you are skipping the point that the evolution of life is God's choice and takes time, therefore everyone has to eat until humans arrive. That is the only relationship.

If God exists, clearly he set the process of evolution in motion, and clearly evolution takes time, and clearly EVERYONE has to eat, and clearly this applies to EVERY species that follows on from other species, including humans. I simply find it illogical to argue that God specifically designed the weaverbird’s nest in order to provide food so that evolution could continue “until humans arrived”.

dhw: I have acknowledged that their intelligence is limited. (So is ours.) If a bird builds a complicated nest, that does not mean it can invent a computer or a rocket to the moon or a theory concerning the existence of God. It can build a nest and solve problems relating to its own existence. Not proven, but for me far from impossible.
DAVID: For me it is very far from possible. I've agreed that an IM is possible as a tip of the hat to you, but if one understands the complexity of life, I find it totally unreasonable that chance or existing species have the ability to create the next complexity in speciation.

I have also discounted chance. Now once again you are focusing on speciation. The weaverbird’s nest, the monarch’s metamorphoses and navigation, the parasitic wasp, the cuttlefish’s camouflage, the spider’s jump etc. etc. etc. have nothing to do with speciation (unless you mean every single one of the thousands of “species” of butterfly, wasp, spider etc.), but according to you God designed these natural wonders because the organisms did not have the ability to work such things out for themselves, and they were all essential to keep evolution going until, with his limitless powers, he could finally design the only thing he wanted to design. And your only explanation for this weird logic is that this was the way your God chose.

dhw: Insects can solve problems, which is probably the best guide to “intelligence”. I am not in the least surprised by these discoveries, and in due course more and more scientists will probably join McClintock, Margulis, Shapiro and others in concluding that even brainless bacteria are sentient, cognitive, intelligent beings. Many thanks for continuing to provide so much evidence for what you do not believe in.
DAVID: Note, I agree that insects with brains can solve simple problems. Single-celled organisms are automatons. I hope you can add to your favorite M.M.S group of bacteria supporters. I've not run into any but would tell you if I did.

Your usual authoritative statement. You only have to google “bacterial intelligence” to see how controversial the subject is, partly of course because it is so difficult to define intelligence. If self-awareness, as in humans, is part of your definition, then bacteria are not intelligent, but I think most of us would agree that there are degrees of intelligence, and self-awareness is right at the top of the hierarchy. I prefer to list the attributes we associate with intelligence, and what we find is that bacteria respond to environmental change (sentience), adapt their behaviour to changing circumstances, communicate and cooperate with one another, solve problems, take decisions. Please tell me what other attributes you would consider necessary before you apply the term “intelligent”.

I have on several occasions drawn your attention to the work of G. Albrecht-Buehler, who has spent a lifetime studying cellular biology.
G. Albrecht-Buehler’s Cell Intelligence Website
www.basic.northwestern.edu/g-buehler/cellint0.htm