Chimps \'r\' not us: the role of gene enhancers (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, February 07, 2018, 15:34 (2482 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Of course at the individual level erectus survived. They had all the skills they needed, but they couldn't advance beyond that until a bigger brain gave them new thought equipment to move forward.

dhw: Species consist of individuals! If no individuals survive, the species is extinct! The brain as “thought equipment” is a neat term to support materialism. In case you’ve forgotten, dualists believe that thought comes from the soul and not the brain. See “big brain evolution”.

In life we cannot get to our s/s/c except by using our material brain. Dualism

dhw: As for learning about God, if he exists, there are only two possible ways of doing so: one is revelation, and the other is by studying his works. I don’t know if you have had any revelations, but I myself am stuck with studying his works, and I find that their history is that of a higgledy-piggledy bush of life, including humans, which might mean that his purpose was to create a higgledy-piggledy bush of life, including humans. You find it more reasonable to suppose that he created the weaverbird’s nest and umpteen hominid/hominin brains because his sole purpose was to produce the brain of Homo sapiens.

DAVID: Exactly. I also look at works. No revelations. I'm sorry you are disappointed, but I can't dig any further. Your digging into the history describes what we see, nothing more.

dhw: No disappointment as regards revelations. Looking at the works means describing what you see. You have dug deeper and concluded that what you see means that your God designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder, and did so solely in order to produce the brain of Homo sapiens. I suggest that your reluctance to dig deeper refers to this hypothesis, because you can’t find any logic in its workings other than “he preferred to do it this way”. I have dug deeper and have proposed a different hypothesis whose workings are completely logical.

All of which tries to understand God from a humanizing standpoint. I'll stick with Adler as recognizing that impossibility.