Human evolution: early thumb tool grip advance (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, January 31, 2021, 08:41 (1390 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Early small-brained erectus made stone tools so the new form of thumb from God was more useful, and anticipated the bigger brain hand uses later.

dhw: What do you mean here by “anticipated”? You keep telling us that he popped in to perform his operations. So he popped in to give erectus a waggly thumb because he knew that a million years later he was going to give someone else a wagglier hand and a bigger brain?

DAVID: My God designs advances as He speciates.

I know your interpretation of evolution is that 3.8 billion years ago your God devised programmes for every single life form, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder except for those he created by direct intervention, e.g. by performing operations on a group of homos to give each of them two flexible thumbs so that two million years later, after a few more operations, their descendants could invent and play the piano. And I am amazed by your next claim:

DAVID: God designs advances. God could not pack into cells His knowledge of design. It is always easier to just design it yourself as I have done in architectural designs in the past. You seem to love your second-hand God character, a weak confused fellow.

I really don’t know how it can be “easier” to perform millions of operations on millions of organisms, and to offer millions of courses in subjects like camouflage and nest-building, than to provide organisms with the means of doing their own designing.

dhw: And finally, there is nothing second-hand, weak or confused about a God who knows what he wants, designs it, and gets it.

DAVID: Finally we agree on something, although I'm sure our interpretations of that statement really differ.

They certainly do. According to you, your God designed all sorts of nasty things, but he didn’t want to, and you just hope there’s going to be a nice explanation, though you can’t find one. And you think that makes him strong and clear-minded. Whereas apparently (see “Theodicy”) a God who wants to create something interesting for himself and does so is weak and confused.