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

by David Turell , Friday, November 23, 2018, 01:29 (2191 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You have 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.

dhw: I have followed, repeated and totally accept the logic of the delicate balance of econiches and top predators. You resolutely refuse to acknowledge that this has no link whatsoever to your argument that 50,000 spider webs are “stepping stones” to humans.

The spiders are part of the diversity of life for the formation of econiches which allow everyone who continues to evolve to eat and have the ability to have the energy to do that. The spiders are one tiny part of the millions of stepping stones to humans in the diversity of life that evolves to humans. Be sticking to one example you are obviously missing the whole point of the concept of God's use of evolution to evolve humans and distorting my concept for your purpose of debate.

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.

I don't see recognizing humans as an endpoint is at all illogical. If we use Darwin's view of adaptation for survival, humans shouldn't be here at all. The apes they left behind were doing fine and never needed a change to continue for 6-8 million years as we developed. Leaving Darwin behind, we see punctuated equilibrium with giant gaps in form and function, and those gaps logically require design. You logically remain agnostic because you can see the design, and then your logic stops by not accepting a mind must exist to do the design.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: My hypothesis allows for God. It does not allow for an illogical God. If your God exists, of course he has purpose, and you are quite right that my theistic purpose does not fit yours. That does not mean I don’t see God and I don’t see purpose. It simply means that I am offering a logical view of his purpose as an alternative to your own illogical view (he designed 50,000 spider webs as stepping stones to humans).

I have yet to see you present a logical purposeful activity of God.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Agreed, apart from the equally nebulous possibility that it is not “a mind” but billions of evolving minds (my atheistic panpsychist hypothesis). I am the logical ass starving between two identical bags of hay. But I’m afraid this does not make your anthropocentric view of 50,000 spider webs logical, and it does negate the logic of your God designing the mechanisms of evolution (as opposed to designing every individual life form, life style and natural wonder extant and extinct) to produce the ever changing spectacle of life’s history as we know it, though always allowing for the occasional dabble if he feels like it (Chixculub perhaps). Sometimes I accept your logic (design). At other times I reject it (50,000 spider webs as stepping stones to humans). Quoting the times I accept it does not provide any defence for arguments which make it necessary for your God to have a different (and inexplicable) logic from ours!

You have summarized why we remain very apart. The spiders are a tiny part of the diversity of life required to provide the energy for evolution to take 3.6-8 billion years. I am convinced God designed evolution until we arrived. As for humans as the endpoint, have you considered we are in charge of the Earth now, and any further evolution is subject to how we allow it. There are very concerned philosophical articles on the subject.