Natures wonders: squid eye lens focuses exactly (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, August 15, 2017, 19:18 (2655 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Of course it’s an obvious truth, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with your God’s sole purpose being the production of the human brain! It simply means that all life needs energy! Life went on without the human brain, and it can continue without the human brain.

But you have not explained the appearance of the human brain. It is obvious the apes did not need it for survival, so that argument is out. But evolution comes with a drive to complexity, which the bacteria shows us is not needed, so that argument must lead us to the conclusion that evolution is driven by forces that do not relate to survival but do lead to improvement and/or complexity to explain the human brain. Only an outside influence/guidance can explain those unnecessary drives.

dhw: And I keep agreeing that there is purpose in the biology of life, but you refuse to accept any purpose other than the production of the human brain. As above, life goes on, and staying alive is a purpose in itself, and improving one’s chances of staying alive is a purpose in itself, and every living cell serves the same purpose.

Bacteria have shown us survival is easy. Your comment does not explain advancing beyond bacteria.

QUOTE: No explanation of nature — not in biology or physics or in any natural science — makes sense without recourse to final causes. Final cause – teleology — is the cause of causes."

dhw: And there’s the crunch. “Teleology” is a loaded word, because rightly or wrongly it has come to be associated with a final or first cause, which for some people is a supernatural, sourceless, all-knowing, all-powerful being they call God. But if I agree that my legs serve the purpose of holding me up and enabling me to walk or run, I’m afraid that does not mean there must be a God. Lots and lots and lots of things serve a very clearly definable purpose, and yes there has to be a first cause, which may or may not be a conscious being or unconscious energy and matter. That’s as far as we can go, unless we shut our minds and jump to faith in one explanation or the other.

Nothing wrong with faith, when it is arrived at with logical thought.