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

by dhw, Sunday, November 25, 2018, 09:29 (2188 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Yes, yes, every econiche requires and provides energy. The fact that it took 3+ billion years for humans to appear does not mean that every econiche, innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct was a stepping stone to humans!

DAVID: You are trying to portray my use of the word 'steppingstone' to mean that each animal in each niche leads to humans. That is not what I have stated. They simply supply energy, while the evolutionary lines that lead to humans progresses through time. That line represents the only steppingstones as you refer to them.

You stated (17 November): “All of the varieties produced through evolution are steppingstones to humans; that is what evolution means and I believe God designed what He thought was necessary all the way from the first cells to humans.” (My bold) But if you really meant to say that all econiches provide energy, and humans descended in steps from a particular line of organisms and the process took time, then we are in complete agreement, though I have no idea why you would wish to make two such obvious and unrelated statements.

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

dhw: Then let me yet again repeat my theistic hypothesis: that a single mind (your God) needs something to keep itself occupied. […] 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; Again, you dredge up the psychological concept of 'pass timing' applied to all humans. […] I've never agreed to that mechanism behind God's action. What I have agreed to is God acted to create life in the way you describe, not his possible motives for self-entertainment as the impetus.

dhw: [..] You said I had never presented a logical purposeful activity of God (now bolded). I answered you, and so your response is to tell me you don’t believe it.

DAVID: It is not that I don't believe: I've pointed out to you that you have introduced a human purpose for God to follow. You have discussed around the point. God is not human. I don't know that He needs entertainment and set up some for himself. I was referring to serious purpose but didn't make that clear.

Perhaps you should have written: “I have never seen you present a logical purposeful activity of God that I consider to be serious.” I have offered you a perfectly logical purpose which fits in with the history of life as we know it. Indeed in unguarded moments you have even suggested that your hidden God watches us with interest. But of course God is not human, and we don’t even “know” if he exists, let alone what his purpose might be. We have been over all this umpteen times. I do not accept your definition of “a logical purposeful activity” as an activity you consider to be “serious”, and in any case I personally consider the purpose I have proposed as something extremely serious, though I would prefer to use a less flippant term than "entertainment". "Occupation" perhaps, as in something to occupy his mind.

DAVID: You are still partial Darwinist, while disavowing a portion of his theory.[…] That is pure Darwin wishful thinking.

dhw: Yes, I am a “partial Darwinist”. So what? The concept of cellular intelligence as a driving force is neither pure Darwin nor wishful thinking. It is a hypothetical explanation of evolution based on research Darwin knew nothing about.

DAVID: Your dependency on Darwin is shown by the fact that you still cling to an unproven theory behind the evolutionary mechanism he envisioned, that survivability plays a role in advancing evolution. Survivability did not make mammals take to water.

How the heck do you know that? Hypothesis: food was short on land but plentiful in the water, so some mammals took to water. Is that less logical than God’s purpose was humans, and so he gave some land-dwelling mammals fins to enable them to enter the water? Survivability is pure common sense. All organisms fight to survive, and if conditions change, either they adapt or they die. My hypothesis goes one step further: adaptation in order to survive may extend to innovation in order to improve chances of survival.

DAVID: All your theory is based on is cellular adaptability to changing stimuli, but the cells/organisms are not really a different form or species.

Cells are the components of all organisms. The way in which cell communities are structured determines the nature of the organism. But yes, of course my speciation hypothesis is based on cellular adaptability to changing stimuli. And in case you’ve forgotten, it proposes that this adaptability is controlled by possibly God-given, autonomous cellular intelligence, but we have no evidence that intelligence-governed cellular adaptability can extend so far as to innovation, and that is why it remains a hypothesis.