Natures wonders: ant rafts and towers (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, July 20, 2017, 16:53 (2681 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I am (partly) disagreeing with the authors’ interpretation, and I didn’t/don’t know why you mentioned nests. Ants’ nests can be astonishingly complex, and once again I see them as manifestations of ant intelligence, not as part of your God’s great plan to produce human beings by preprogramming or dabbling ants’ nests.

DAVID: Ah, now you do what I do, re-interpret the results of studies. But I do it when the conclusions of the authors taken from the data appear to differ from what the data might mean. The authors here presented very specific observations of ant participation in the construction of the structures. You are presenting an unproven back story in which God did not have to give any instructions according to the authors. Don't you see your overreach?

dhw: I see ants building structures (rafts, towers, nests) which seem to me to require intelligence. I propose that individual ants cooperated intelligently as a community to design these structures. The authors propose that they build them “automatically”. You presumably propose that God gave them instructions. All of us extrapolate our conclusions from “what the data might mean”. None of us can prove our proposals.

I did not presume God gave them instructions for rafts or towers. Again, your overreach.