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

by David Turell , Monday, February 25, 2019, 15:02 (2096 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Its role is balance of nature. Stop describing what 'doesn't make sense to me'. I make my own sense.

dhw: But you admit that you cannot explain why your God chose to design millions of niches, including those involving different dragonfly reproductive systems, when all he wanted to do was design the brain of H. sapiens.

But it is explained and you've agreed. If evolution is the method along the way everyone who survives has to eat.

DAVID: Of course there is no direct link between fireflies and human brains. It is all part of evolution as I view it. To repeat, I make perfect sense to me.

dhw: Of course it’s part of evolution, as is every other life form, lifestyle and innovation. But that does not explain why he “chose” to design them all when the ONLY thing he wanted to design, according to you, was the human brain.

Quibbling. Econiches are needed for food supply. Each time you tell me I don't make sense to me I'll repeat the point.

DAVID: You do not see a purposeful God as I do. If He is driven to achieve certain goals He will keep tight control.

dhw: If I believed in God, I would see him as all purposeful. But (a) since your theory that his one and only goal was you and me is logically incompatible with his 3.5+ billion years’ worth of anything but you and me, I challenge it, and (b) since you firmly believe in free will, it should be obvious to you that he did not wish to keep tight control over at least one product of evolution, and so it is feasible that he might not have wished to keep tight control over the evolutionary process either. And you are sure that he enjoys his creations, just as a painter enjoys his paintings, but you are unwilling to even countenance the idea that he might have started the whole higgledy-piggledy process for his enjoyment. (The word was yours. I would prefer to delve a little deeper.)

DAVID: But you don't believe in God. In that point of view I agree all of your thoughts have logic, but your thoughts don't change my mind.

dhw: Same answer as above. The “logical” thoughts I have offered you are all theistic. But I am satisfied with your earlier acknowledgements that you can't explain why your God chose to spend 3.5+ years not fulfilling his only purpose, and that all my alternative theistic explanations are logical and possible. I do not ask you to believe in any of them.

I am satisfied also. Within your frame of reference I recognize your thoughts are theistic and logical possibilities.