Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 03, 2021, 16:39 (1151 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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?

God advances evolution according to his plan; He is the driving force, not survival. He has made sure the 'process of living' survives as shown by extremophiles.

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.

dhw: 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.

Your red herring. Adler used our evolution for His exposition about human exceptionality.

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.

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

Horrors!!! More agreement.