Natures wonders: seabirds food finding flight patterns (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 17, 2020, 10:48 (1679 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This is not a sign of bird intelligence. It might well be an instinct from trial and error with loss of lots of birds from hunger.

dhw: How is it possible for any organism to try things out and learn from their mistakes without knowing what they are doing (= intelligence)? […]

DAVID: The issue you raise is can birds know there is a possibility of death? That is too deep thinking for birds. So the answer is they recognize if they can get food, no more. Not much thought involved, but you want every lesser animal to have lots of thoughts. Why?

That is not the issue I raise! Nor did I say I wanted every animal to think deeply or have lots of thoughts! The only question here is not the degree of intelligence, but whether birds are intelligent or not. You avoid the point about trial and error, which is a clear indication that birds try things out, learn from their mistakes, and eventually in this case come up with a highly intelligent solution to the problem of finding enough food to survive on. So how can you possibly say this whole process is NOT a sign of intelligence?

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DAVID: You want exactitude. I don't have it, but I would guess God knew viruses were part of His evolution and gave us the brains to handle it

dhw: What do you mean by “knew they were part of his evolution”? Either he designed them or he didn’t. Which do you think it is? And do please take a guess as to why he might want to test us.

DAVID: I have no way of knowing if He wanted to test us. He created viruses because they help in evolution. He gave us the brain to fight the bad ones; God's simple foresight.

First you confirm that in your view he wants to test us, and then when I ask you why, you say you don’t know if he wants to test us! In fact, you don’t know any of what you state with such exactitude, and when I question it, you complain that I want exactitude!

dhw (re T cells): So what is your theory here? Did your God deliberately design the imperfections in order to test human ability to solve the problems with our great brains? Or are these imperfections the result of mechanisms left to organize themselves?

DAVID: Again, your problem. We know life does not work perfectly, since the constant biochemical activity is at high speed and unfortunately prone to some errors despite the tight controls generally working. [..]

dhw: Why my problem? You made the exact statement about your God’s intention to test us. […] If you only want to make exact statements but not discuss their implications, our forum has no purpose.

DAVID: You are complaining that my answer is not enough for you. But you are the one raising the problem issue. We don't know if God can make life work perfectly, because we know it does not. The bold is the usual twist of my underlying thought. The real thought is: God knew some bacteria and viruses would cause problems. Therefore He gave us a huge brain with a giant conceptual area with which to work and solve problems.

You lurch from one inconsistency to another. One moment he’s testing us, and the next you don’t know if he is - let alone why. One moment your God is all powerful and can do what he wants when he wants, but now all of a sudden we don’t know if he can make life work perfectly. You’ve now committed yourself to saying that he deliberately designed the bad viruses, and your logic then tells you that he gave us great brains so that even if they killed us off and caused us huge suffering, eventually we would find a way to kill them off too. And if I ask you why he designed the baddies in the first place, that’s my problem. Meanwhile, in spite of your statement earlier that God “allowed” the virus to evolve, you ignore my follow-up: “are these imperfections the result of mechanisms left to organize themselves?” Such a possibility would save you tying yourself in all these intellectual knots!