Big brain evolution: comparing chimp and brain organoids (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, February 16, 2019, 13:23 (2105 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I make no assumptions. I merely offer different hypotheses to explain the only facts we know, which are that there have been millions and millions of life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders, and humans came very late on the scene. If God exists, and since you and I believe that evolution happened, I have no doubt that he would have chosen evolution as his method for fulfilling his purpose. But what that purpose was from the beginning is “pure guesswork”, and whether his powers are limited or not is also “pure guesswork”. [...] I offer hypotheses for both, and you have agreed that they are all possible, but still you insist that the basis of your own is correct: i.e. you know his purpose and you know he chose to do things your way, even though you have repeatedly stated that you don’t know why.

DAVID: Of course I do not know why God made his choice of evolving humans rather than a direct creation, or He did it because of limitations. These possibilities are all permutations of suppositions, angels dancing on a pine head. If one views evolution as driven by a need for survival and no other drive is present, humans have no need to be here at the level of sophistication they represent. Our ancestor apes are just fine if we would leave them alone. With that reasoning I view evolution as driven by God as designer, as proven by the obvious view that life is too complicated to be the result of chance.

Thank you once more for admitting that you cannot understand why your God should have chosen to spend 3.5+ billion years fulfilling the one and only purpose you impose on him. You have accepted all my hypothetical explanations as possible, and so now you go back to survival, which we have also covered and agreed on. Once more: if your God exists, then of course he is the driving force behind evolution, but even your own theory states that he specially designed 3.5+ billion years’ worth of life forms etc. so that life would continue (= SURVIVE) until he could design the only thing he wanted to design. According to you yourself, the “immediate driving force” (your term) behind his invention of slug glue, whale flippers, cuttlefish camouflage, monarch migration etc. was to improve their chances of SURVIVAL. An immediate driving force is a driving force.

dhw:It would seem that we have now reached agreement on these issues, as well as on that of survival as an “immediate driving force” for evolution, and so I shall refer back to this post if any of these issues arise again. Pax!

DAVID: Peace.

dhw: I am a man of my word. How about you?

DAVID: We can have peace within our preferred positions, which will always differ.

But you have now raised exactly the same issues as before, which means yet more repetition!

DAVID: [referring to cellular intelligence]: We have no evidence of such a mechanism. I view God as in control, and prefer not to suppose about which we have no facts.

dhw: You suppose that your God is in control (but elsewhere he is limited), you suppose that the brain of H. sapiens was his one and only purpose, you suppose that he specially designed 3.5+ billion years’ worth of life forms etc. so that they would eat / not eat one another until he had designed what he wanted to design, but you prefer not to suppose “about which we have no facts”.

DAVID: The facts we both know have lead to what I consider logical conclusions and a discovery of a faith in God. Your conclusionary road differs. So be it.

I have no problem with your argument that life is too complex to have come about by chance, and therefore you have faith that there is a designer. But please stop pretending that your attempts to read God’s mind (see my bolded summary above) are based on facts. They are pure suppositions.

DAVID: You have no answer for why evolution advanced beyond bacteria. Your dependence on survival as a driving force logically goes out the window! Bacteria prove it! Only a designer could have created multicellularity. Bacteria are complex forms, multicellulars are infinitely more complex. All conclusions based on the facts we both know.

We have been over all this hundreds of times. Even bacteria change themselves in order to SURVIVE in different environments. Nobody knows why single cells began to combine, but if – as some scientists believe – single cells are intelligent, cognisant, cooperative, decision-making organisms (possibly endowed with their intelligence by a designer God), it is not unreasonable to suppose that they found it advantageous to do so. The fact that they produced new methods of SURVIVAL does not mean the only possible explanation is that your God preprogrammed or manipulated them to do so as part of his 3.5+ billion-year plan as bolded above. And it does not alter one jot your agreement that the “immediate driving force” for the various innovations, whether directly designed by your God or not – was SURVIVAL.