Evolution and humans: big brain birth canal (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 19:00 (2213 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Of course you can not explain how it happened But agreed it had to happen. Only an outside designer fits the issue of how. This illustrates your constantly illogical approach to the question of a designer. This is one of hundreds, if not thousands of required designer examples.

dhw: And over and over again I have accepted the argument for design as opposed to random chance, but I disagree that “only an outside designer” can do it. Hence the hypothesis of cellular intelligence, which = an inside designer (possibly invented by your God).

Your approach is so illogical you constantly have to run back to possibly God inserting a inventive mechanism. Cells cannot plan for a future they cannot visualize.

DAVID: The preponderance of evidence is overwhelming. You weak response is cell committees have the intelligence to do it, implying they know how to visualize the future and design for its requirements.

dhw: And over and over again I have rejected your interpretation of evolution as the result of planning for the future. (Not to mention the illogicality of every design, including the caterpillar’s viper-like head, being geared to the production of the human brain.)

The caterpillar produces a look-alike of a snake it has never seen and cannot visualize,coming from egg to larva to insect. The only logic of that video is 'someone' had to help the caterpillar develop that ability.

dhw: Once more: I see evolution as the result of organisms RESPONDING to - not prophesying - the needs and/or opportunities presented by environmental change.

"Responding" to create the gaps we see in the fossil record requires design, which you accept. You insistence that it can naturally happen by the organisms themselves is totally illogical. Responses to 'environmental changes', from the evidence are huge gaps in form and function requiring design. You approach is obviously wishful thinking that somehow it happens.

DAVID: Extrapolated from cells intelligent responses to immediate stimuli that are a requirement for life's homeostasis to continue. The belief in God comes from looking at the whole of the evidence at the same time.

dhw: And over and over again I have agreed that my hypothesis is a hypothesis, because we do not know if cells/cell communities have the intelligence to innovate. And over and over again, what you call “balance of nature” - now cloaked in the more scientific-sounding “homeostasis” – has proved to be nothing more than the fact that balance is necessary for life, and nature’s balance is constantly changing as organisms either fail to maintain the current balance, or adapt to/exploit prevailing conditions. I accept that your belief in God is based on your interpretation of the evidence you see, and I respect your belief. I also accept that atheists’ disbelief is based on their interpretation of the evidence they see, and I respect their disbelief. And my agnosticism, or non-belief, stems from the fact that my interpretation of the evidence I see leaves me stuck between two equally unlikely conclusions. You know all of this. You just prefer to forget that you know it.

You forget I was invited to your website to attack your lack of beliefs. I will continue to use that license until you tell me to quit, and continue to present evidence I find on an almost daily basis. The caterpillar/snake is one of the best I've ever seen. And I've been partially successful in that you are much less a Darwinist than you were in the beginning (2008).