Logic and evolution: doubting Darwin; (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 05, 2019, 10:28 (1695 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I view the point of this essay is that humans cannot be justified by Darwin's principal theories. The only accomplishment of Darwin is to put the emphasis on evolution. Once again you ignore Adler's point that we are different in kind, and God is required.

dhw: What do you mean by his “principal theories”?

DAVID: You have ignored this paragraph in the essay: "The human brain and the power of speech put humans way beyond the boundaries of Darwin’s own three critical criteria for natural selection, which; (i) may expand an animal’s power only to a point where it has survival advantage — and no further; (ii) cannot produce changes that are “injurious” to the animal; and (iii) cannot produce a “specially developed organ” that is useless to an animal at the time it develops. If a Neanderthal brain three times the size of any primate’s and a unique capacity for speech do not constitute “specially developed organs,” what does?"

So what do you mean by Darwin’s “principal theories”? You go on and on about the specialness of the human brain, and I go on and on agreeing with you, but you also go on and on about the specialness of every natural wonder in the history of life, all of which according to you require direct design by your God! They ALL make for a powerful case against Darwin’s theory that innovations are caused by random mutations. They also show the illogicality of your theory that your God’s one and only purpose in designing ALL of them was to enable life to survive until he started designing the ONLY thing he wanted to design! *(See “Unanswered questions”)

DAVID: Your paragraph simply uses a hope that organisms can evolve themselves. Your evidence is epigenetics which only provides adaptations, nothing like speciation, according to current scientific findings.

dhw: It’s not a hope, it’s a hypothesis, and your “only provides adaptations” masks the fact that adaptation itself requires intelligence, and sometimes it’s difficult to draw a borderline between adaptation and innovation (for instance, legs becoming flippers, and the rest of the whale’s body undergoing so many adaptations that the whale becomes a new species). Nobody knows how speciation occurs, but adaptation provides a possible clue. I do not know of any “scientific findings” that support your fixed belief that your God preprogrammed or dabbled pre-whale legs turning into flippers before pre-whales entered the water. Ditto every other adaptation/innovation you can think of.

DAVID: Again, you are ignoring the need for design by a mind.

I am proposing that the cells do the designing because, as many scientists now believe, cells are intelligent organisms. But I am an agnostic, and acknowledge the possibility that your God may be the designer of the intelligent cell. Why do you think he is incapable of such a design?

DAVID: Your cells have no neurological abilities.

dhw: There are all kinds of cells, including neurons. In multicellular organisms they combine to form communities, and these communities – whether 1) divinely preprogrammed or 2) divinely dabbled, or 3) acting autonomously, are the producers of innovations. You simply reject the third hypothesis, on the grounds that we don’t actually “know” if it is true. Same problem, then, with 1) and 2), but you have a fixed belief in at least one of them.

DAVID: Yes I do. Do cells other than neurons create the ability to design thru thought?

I don’t know why you are so hung up on neurons. “Design” requires cooperation between ALL the cell communities. However, here is an article that might open your eyes to the fact that single cells do not need human brains to think:
www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/uoc--bdb101915.php

"Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that bacteria--often viewed as lowly, solitary creatures--are actually quite sophisticated in their social interactions and communicate with one another through similar electrical signaling mechanisms as neurons in the human brain."

DAVID: I can't accept design by cell committee, your theory to avoid God.

For the thousandth time, it does NOT avoid God, because God may have been the designer of the intelligent cell. What you cannot accept is the increasing amount of evidence that cells are intelligent. That does not prove that they are capable of evolutionary innovation, but it is a major step along the way, since we already know that they are capable of adaptation.