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

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 21, 2018, 22:43 (2192 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I'll repeat the link: to evolve humans took 3.5+ billion years. The econiches provided the food supply for life to have energy for all those years.

dhw: Two separate statements without a link! Econiches have provided food for all forms of life from the beginning to the present. That does not mean that every econiche was specially designed as a “stepping stone” (your delightful metaphor) to the production of humans.

You h ave not followed the logic based on all my reports on the delicacy of the balance in niches. If a top predator is removed the niche is in trouble. The spider may be a top predator.

DAVID: Food supply is required. Each niche is in delicate balance, as I have shown with many articles. The webs solve a requirement for that balance in specific niches. It does not require God's logic to understand the point.

dhw: Of course not. It is perfectly logical to say that every form of life extant and extinct lives/lived in a delicately balanced econiche, and spider webs are part of the balance of their particular niches. And if every spider was wiped out, there would be a different balance and a different econiche. How does that make 50,000 spider webs a “stepping stone” to humans?

Spiders are part of a balanced niche. Spiders were evolved into a large family as part of the diversity of the bush of life which creates the niches so all eat.

DAVID: I've not invented anything illogical. Humans are an illogical supreme endpoint, but here we are. I can see purpose. Your position doesn't allow for a recognition of purpose.

dhw: I hope that by "illogical" you are now agreeing that there is no logic in regarding 50,000 spider webs or other unrelated forms of life, lifestyle or natural wonder extant or extant as “stepping stones” to humans. Whether we are an endpoint of any kind is something that will only become apparent in the next few billion years, which you and I won’t be around to see. And finally, you keep emphasizing (theistic) purpose, but the moment I challenge your idea of (theistic) purpose and suggest a different (theistic) purpose, you complain (a) that I don't see purpose, or (b) that my (theistic) purpose – which you agree fits in logically with the history of life - requires reading God’s mind, whereas your (theistic) purpose – which leads to an illogical endpoint – requires your God’s mind to have a different logic from ours. Your reading of God’s mind apparently extends to the fixed belief that by human standards it is illogical.

Your hope is hopeless. We remain apart. Remember I see God when you don't. I see purpose when you don't. Your theistic purposes never seem to fit mine. Your logic is not mine. For example you can see design like I do, but the logical next step that a mind must exist, is not acceptable to you, simply because you cannot accept an eternal mind. Anything else obviously illogical.