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

by dhw, Friday, November 23, 2018, 09:20 (2191 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.

Of course they are part of the diversity of life, but the econiches only allow everyone to eat until they do not allow everyone to eat, and then the econiches change. That does not make them stepping stones to humans.

DAVID: 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.

I have offered you example after example. You cannot explain how spiders’ webs, monarch butterflies, camouflaged fish, the weaverbird’s nest and every other life form, lifestyle and natural wonder extinct and extant in the history of life provide(d) stepping stones to humans! It is the concept that God used all of these in order to evolve humans that is illogical, which is why you say your God’s logic is different from ours. This is not for the purpose of debate but for the purpose of putting together a coherent explanation for the history of life as we know it.

DAVID: 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.

We have dealt with this over and over again. Since bacteria have been so successful, there was no need for ANY other life form to evolve. If you believe in common descent, then you believe that at some time one group of apes split off from the rest of the apes. The group that split off may well have done so because their conditions changed. The rest stayed as they were. Why is that so hard to envisage?

DAVID: 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.

Agreed over and over again. I am the logical ass starving between two identical bags of hay. Why do you keep harping on about this – do you think it makes your hypothesis logical?

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).

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

Then let me yet again repeat my theistic hypothesis: that a single mind (your God) needs something to keep itself occupied. It therefore creates the mechanisms for life, reproduction and evolution as an ever changing spectacle, which it watches unfolding in different ways (diversity), perhaps occasionally dabbling when it feels like doing so. Although you don’t like it, that is a logical purposeful activity, which you have repeatedly agreed fits in with the history of life as we know it.
[…]

DAVID: 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.

Yes, you are convinced of your anthropocentric interpretation of evolution, but since you can find no logical explanation, you tell us that God’s logic is different from ours. Nobody has a clue where evolution will lead us over the next few billion years, so it is impossible to talk of an “endpoint”. To a certain extent we are in charge, but as things stand we are still helpless when Nature exerts its powers (tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions), not to mention the sort of catastrophe that could come to us from outer space. As for us, I think you’ll find that even non-philosophers are very concerned about what humans are doing to the environment, to our fellow animals, and to ourselves. I don’t know why you think this means your God specially designed 50,000 spider webs etc. etc. as stepping stones to humans.