dhw: Evolution and humans: Neanderthal lungs larger (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, November 17, 2018, 10:55 (2196 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Meanwhile, yet again you have resolutely ignored issue 2) (bolded above), which is the one on which I challenge your logic.

DAVID: I feel I have answered you. My theory is as before, that God uses evolution to produce the life He wants to produce. It is based on the pattern of evolution I see.

If your God exists, and since you and I both believe that evolution happened, of course he used evolution to produce the life he wanted to produce. But according to you “His purpose was humans” and so the life he wanted to produce was that of H. sapiens but he also specially produced 50,000 spider webs, Neanderthal lungs, and every other innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of evolution. When challenged on the logic of this, and when I suggest that maybe spiders designed their own webs and maybe they and Neanderthal lungs and the weaverbird's nest and humans were only part of your God's purpose, you tell us that God’s logic must be different from ours, which means you don’t understand the logic either. That is the nub of the matter.

DAVID: I do not accept survival of the fittest as a driving force.

That has nothing to do with the illogicality of the above.

DAVID: And therefore I think environmental changes result in minor adaptations and not jumps in species.

Hardly a “therefore”, but fair comment as an attack on my hypothesis concerning speciation. Nothing whatsoever to do with the illogical argument above.

DAVID: Since humans are a species above and beyond any other organism produced they, therefore, are an obvious goal.

If he wants to produce 50,000 spider webs etc., then 50,000 spider webs etc. are what he wants to produce, and this does not square with your constantly repeated statement that “His purpose was humans”.

DAVID: At many points the jumps (gaps) in form and physiology require prior design, so they can be produced fully functional at that new level. I fully believe all of this, and I can understand why you don't.

That was issue 1) and has nothing to do with issue 2).

DAVID: Until you accept God in the way I do you will not. I reached all of these conclusions logically for me, and now I have faith. I do not try to enter God's mind to explain why it works this way, but it all is logical to me. I do not think I have to enter His mind.

Any attempt to interpret purpose means trying to entering the mind of the doer. You keep telling us that “His purpose was humans”, but you can’t explain how this ties in with your belief that he specially designed 50,000 spider webs etc. etc. although “it all is logical” to you. I’m sorry, but if you can’t explain your own logic, you might as well say that this is what you believe and you couldn’t care less about logic. The whole point of this forum is to discuss and test the logic behind all the hypotheses concerning all the unanswered questions. Your arguments in favour of design are, in my opinion, impeccably logical, which is why you scurry back to them when I challenge the logic of your views on purpose and method.

DAVID: I don't see how you can attack this as illogical since I view your views as lacking logic.

Even if all my views were illogical, that would not mean your own view was logical.

DAVID: Your analysis of God's thoughts lead to nowhere since they are unproven hypotheses and certainly are not a solution to our questions, simply raising more questions. I've questioned and I've stopped and accepted, Deyanu.

All our hypotheses concerning the thoughts, purposes, methods and indeed existence of God are unproven. If they were proven, there would be nothing to discuss. It is true that our discussions, like so many of the related discoveries of modern science, seem only to raise more questions. That seems to be the nature of the beast. You yourself have clearly never stopped asking questions, and have even written two brilliant books on all these matters. You only want to stop when I challenge the logic of certain fixed ideas you have accepted – and before you scurry back to design, let me repeat that I do NOT challenge the logic of that particular hypothesis. But if you've really had enough, we can leave it at that - at least till the next time you tell us that your God specially designed xyz and his purpose was to produce the brain and body of H. sapiens.