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

by David Turell , Monday, March 04, 2019, 14:30 (2089 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I know you say you cannot follow my logic, but if we start with the premise that the current result of evolution is according to Adler a difference in kind, that makes us special and can easily seen s God's goal. It is just a difference in a starting point of view.

dhw: You keep agreeing that you cannot follow your own logic, as in statements like: “I have no idea why God chose to evolve humans over time.” You keep forcing me to repeat the alternative logical hypotheses I have offered to your fixed and inexplicably combined beliefs that your God specially designed every life form, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life but that H. sapiens was his one and only goal [and you force me to repeat them again below]:

DAVID: There are other ways to create a logical framework when asking why God did what He did in the way He achieved the result of human beings. Re-read your comment. I make the point that humans are so special they must be God's goal, because they really do not fit the pattern of what evolution created before they arrived. My approach hangs on that magnificent point of argument. And you didn't answer it.

dhw: Nothing to answer. I have always agreed that human mental faculties are special (but see below for startling results). And I have indeed offered you “other ways to create a logical framework”: a) he didn’t know how to do it (limited powers); b) the idea didn’t occur to him till late on in the process (not his one and only goal); c) he did not specially design every other life form but gave evolution a free rein, apart from the odd dabble. All of them have resulted in the production of every organism, including humans. But instead you choose a framework that you cannot explain: one goal, total control, and yet takes 3.5+ billion years specially designing anything but what he wants to design, and only then does he start the itty-bitty special design of big toes, pelvises, mini to maxi brains. Hominin after hominin, human after human, until at last he specially designs H. sapiens.

You won't accept my approach that I don't have to explain God's choice of method when no supposition can achieve nothing but discussion with no conclusions. Your logical suggestions run of in many directions and raise issues that will always hang there and just keep hanging.

DAVID: Your possible explanations of God's methods are logical and only part of issues in which to be concerned, issues about results of the process. If evolution is, in Darwin terms, unguided, humans are a startling unexpected result. I try to encompass a holistic view of the issue, not just the method but the resultant outcome.

dhw: There is nothing holistic about a process which entails one goal, total control, and a delay of 3.5+ billion years spent specially designing anything but the only thing your God wants to design. Life itself is startling, and if we take bacteria as a beginning, dinosaurs, elephants, whales etc. etc. are startling unexpected results, and I would say the human brain is the most startling result of all – but it is the culmination of thousands of millions of years of startling results, and you yourself have traced the itty-bitty steps by which H. sapiens has evolved from earlier life forms.

Why are all the advances startling? Startling results should have startling causes or cause. All of these advances require design and therefore a designer. Why does your thought pattern stop at startling?