Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, June 01, 2020, 12:12 (1634 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID ( re bees eating leaves): Total irrationality. How can one make any observation of two disparate events and reach a conclusion of any connection? It requires multiple munchings and multiple early flowerings to realize the connectionality at the human level, much less the little bee level. Simply repeating your fairy tale is no real answer to my point, which means you have no answer.

dhw: Initially it’s not a conclusion! It’s just a one-off observation of possible cause and effect. So then it’s repeated, and if it continues to work, it becomes an established strategy. The same process would apply to the origin of thousands of other “natural wonders”, in which organisms establish strategies, lifestyles, survival techniques – think of symbiosis - no doubt often from chance beginnings.

DAVID: Again, no answer to the problem of recognition of the relationship of two separated-in-time events. It requires multiple observations It requires mental analysis of correlation, then reaching a conclusion. You have the bee brain capable of that analysis. I don't think so. At least finally you recognize the need for repetition of observations.

My proposal right from the start has been a one-off observation by Miss Bee who points it out to other bees, and they try it too (= repetition). It works, and so it becomes an established strategy. There is no “problem”, and as I've said above (no comment from you), the process must have been repeated thousand and thousands of times over.

dhw: So now let’s hear your explanation as to how bees got started on the trick.

DAVID: Surprise, God helped. As He did with the wiggle dances.

God’s help apparently comes in the form of a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for leaf-biting and for wiggle-dancing, or a direct dabble with the bee’s genome, somehow inserting each programme as the idea occurs to him. (Or has he planned his dabbles right from the start?) And so every time your bees and ants and a few million kindred life forms come up with their new strategies, it’s because your God has twiddled their genome for them. You just can’t imagine that he might have given all organisms the ability to learn from their observations and to pass the new information on to their buddies.

DAVID: You have never fully explained why you think parts of my theory don't stick together. If I understood your reasoning perhaps we can have a real debate.

dhw: I'm surprised, but here we go again. Please bear in mind that individually, your three guesses make perfect sense. However, if your God’s one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, and if he had the power to design H. sapiens any way he wished, there is no conceivable reason why he would first have directly designed millions of now extinct life forms, lifestyles, econiches, strategies and natural wonders which have no conceivable connection to humans.

DAVID: Same old non-explanation. You continually totally ignore my start point: God is in charge of history, which then tells us what He did and what His choice was. He evolved humans from bacteria. With God in charge, this conclusion is not illogical.

No, it's not illogical. But as I keep saying (see above), individually your guesses make sense. It is the COMBINATION that doesn’t, and so as usual you now ignore the fact that he also evolved (for you = specially designed) millions of non-human and now extinct life forms etc., and these do not fit in with your theory that his one and only purpose was to evolve (=specially design) H. sapiens, and he had the power to do it any way he wanted.

DAVID: Your view of God is contaminated by religions view of God. My God conforms to history, nothing more. His capabilities are defined by history. We cannot know His incapabilities.

The above has nothing to do with religion. You have no idea why he would have directly designed all the non-human life forms and econiches if his one and only purpose was to design the human form and its econiches, and if he could have done it any way he wished because he is always in control. Your all-powerful view of God may well be “contaminated” by religion, but you reject any explanation of the history which denies him absolute control, because such a God is not “your” God.

The rest of your post is a continuation of your efforts to avoid facing up to the glaring weakness in your theory, which is the combination of three irreconcilable guesses.