Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, March 03, 2021, 11:55 (1359 days ago) @ David Turell

I asked David what purpose whale flippers may have had other than to improve chances of survival in the water.

DAVID: To advance evolution, which has nothing to do with Darwinian 'survival", any empty concept.

dhw: Why are flippers an advance on legs? Do you agree that animals sometimes have to change their structure in order to survive new conditions? (It’s called adaptation.) If you do, then please explain what you mean by survival being an “empty concept”.

DAVID: Flippers are not an advance in evolution, just a side step to allow mammals into living in water. Flippers are speciation, not adaptation. Survival does not drive evolution, bacteria still here and working proves the point, evolution was never necessary for their survival.

Dealt with under “pre-planning”. Thank you for agreeing that speciation does NOT serve the purpose of advancing evolution (see your first comment above), but allows for an improvement to the organism’s chances of survival - or do you not regard “living” as being essential to survival?

DAVID: God drives evolution, not survival, but continuing to live cannot be ignored so adaptability to new conditions must be provided by God.

dhw: There is no conflict here. If your God enables organisms to survive, then his provision of that ability is driven by the need to enable organisms to survive! How does that make survival an “empty concept”? It is your God’s motive for providing adaptability!

DAVID: My point: survival as used by Darwinists is not necessary to drive evolution. God does it.

Please forget your antipathy towards Darwin and Darwinists. If your God provides organisms with adaptability, and adaptability is what enables organisms to survive, how can you say that survival is an “empty concept” and is not a motive (= a driving force) for whatever adaptive changes your God preprogrammes or dabbles?

cetaceans get much less cancer

DAVID: Through me you are stuck with answering Adler's impeccable logic.

dhw: Adler, as I pointed out in the part of my reply that you have omitted, does not cover your illogical theory of evolution. Please stop hiding behind him.

DAVID: You can't struggle with his impeccable logic about human brains.

dhw: That does not justify the illogicality of your own theory of evolution, which you tell us he does not deal with.

DAVID: Another distorted twist. Adler recognized we evolved for no good Darwin reason. My theories take his position about human exceptionalism into account.

And I have always accepted that we are exceptional, but you keep telling me that Adler does not deal with your theory that your God directly designed every life form, and 99% had no connection with humans, although humans were your God’s only goal. We should not be arguing about what Adler says and doesn’t say. It’s another red herring. Please deal with the issues.

Neanderthal research

dhw: Since Neanderthals clearly had a wide range of activities, I have no hesitation in agreeing with your guess. Of course they would have had the language to match their behaviour, technology etc.

DAVID: We fully agree. My quotes (first book) from "The Ape That Spoke", John MacCrone, 1991 supports our position.

I’m only reproducing this in order to celebrate our full agreement! It does sometimes happen! And as there are a few people out there who actually follow our discussions, let me once more reassure them that despite the fierce battles we wage on this website, David and I are actually the best of friends!

Theoretical origin of life

DAVID: After almost 70 years of research no one is any closer to figuring out the first steps, and my sneaking suspicion is we will never know.

More agreement, and a very apt comment for the AgnosticWeb.