Evolution and humans: Neanderthal lungs larger (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 13, 2018, 13:37 (2200 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] please tell me why you keep insisting that your God’s logic is different from ours, if you consider your explanation to be logical.

DAVID: […] mine is a human logic. God has not explained His logic to me.

So do you or do you not find it logical that your God specially designed 50,000 spider webs and Neanderthal lungs etc. etc. , although his purpose was to produce H. sapiens?

dhw: The “balance of nature” is constantly changing, and all forms of life need and supply energy! That would be true even if there had never been a single human being on Earth, and so the level of this logic is that if there was no life, there would be no life.

DAVID: Repeat: Each econiche is complex, delicate and necessary. I don't think you have ever understood how delicately balanced they are even though I've taken care to produce clear articles.

Yes, each econiche is complex and delicate, but necessary for WHAT? For whatever species happen to exist at the time, and it survives as long as it survives, and then it gives way to a different balance, a different econiche. Nothing whatsoever to do with your claim that your God specially designed every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder although his purpose was to create H. sapiens! That is the yawning gap in your logic, and that is why you constantly reply that your God’s logic is different from ours.

DAVID: If we never find a way to fill the gaps, we are left with personal judgment as to how they happened. They require design in anticipation of use.

dhw: […]. No, the gaps do not “require” design in anticipation of use. They require an understanding of the mechanisms of evolution, which nobody knows but which - with or without God - I suggest (and I don’t think I am alone) work IN RESPONSE to needs and opportunities and not in advance of them.

DAVID: This is pure Darwinism: much variety in form within a species so the most adapted survive and gradually make a new species. Does not explain punctuated equilibrium which you have accepted. The gaps exist and are best explained by design.

Since I reject Darwin's gradualism and accept saltation, of course I accept punctuated equilibrium, but NOBODY can explain how speciation, innovation, saltation etc. work. I agree that they require design, and maybe as you say below “cells know what to do” (bolded) – i.e. they use their possibly God-given intelligence to respond to changing conditions, as opposed to your God having programmed or dabbled every change before those conditions even exist.

DAVID: Your excuse that God might have to give organisms the ability to self design simply is a statement that God is required even if secondhand. Note, either way God is required! How can you avoid this conclusion? […]

dhw: […] of course my hypothesis must include the POSSIBILITY of your God. I am an agnostic, not an atheist […]. But you continuously conflate two separate arguments. What would appear to require advance planning is the MECHANISM for life, reproduction, adaptation and innovation. Therein lies the strength of the design = God argument. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with why or how your God may have “designed” evolution itself. My theistic hypothesis on this subject offers a coherent and logical interpretation of his purpose and method that is different from your own long-held and seemingly entrenched opinion (purpose = humans, method = design every innovation etc. himself). I can therefore quite understand why you lash out against my desire for logic […]

DAVID: You do not understand advanced planning by leaving out phenotype changes in speciation.

Yet again: I propose that speciation takes place IN RESPONSE to new conditions and not before those conditions exist (advanced planning), and it hardly needs to be said that speciation involves phenotype changes!

DAVID: The mechanism of life exists. Cells know what to do.

Yes, the mechanism of life, reproduction, adaptation and innovation exists, and I propose that it may be cellular intelligence which may have been designed by your God.

DAVID: So if we start with Lucy, we have huge bodily changes to explain: bony changes in form, shifted muscle attachments, and the pelvic/birth problem added to it. The whales are more difficult to explain because of the additional physiological problems of a mammal living in water. This cannot happen by chance. Design is required.

Dealt with over and over again, and please stop erecting the straw man of chance, which I have never advocated.

DAVID: I am convinced God designed the start of life. You are totally illogical, because chance development of life and consciousness from the inorganic doesn't make any sense. Only minds design.

Yet again: the theistic version of my hypothesis is precisely that: your God may have designed the START of life, and I cannot believe in the chance development of life and consciousness from the inorganic, and that is a major reason why I am not an atheist. And yet again you are using your belief in God’s existence (through the perfectly logical design argument) to dodge having to defend your illogical version of how and why your God designed evolution, i.e. by specially designing every single innovation etc., extant and extinct, although his purpose was to produce H. sapiens.