Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 27, 2021, 16:43 (1304 days ago) @ dhw

Homo luzonensis

DAVID: My God is allegorical, so any statement about His personal attributes means similar to at the human level. His personality, in my concept of it, is diametrically opposite yours.

dhw: 1) What did I misinterpret in your theory that your God only wanted sapiens and therefore designed thousands of life forms etc. that had no connection with sapiens? 2) If your God is allegorical, it means he is a symbol. What does he symbolize? 3) Do please tell us which of your concepts of his personality are opposite to mine, but please don't use negatives.

My God is fully purposeful, knows exactly what He is doing and never deviates from his goals.

Carbon cycle bacterial contribution

dhw: Since you believe he is always in control, do you think he deliberately created these bacteria to exacerbate the damage he knew we would cause to our planet? > Are you saying that “global warming” is not happening, the icebergs are not melting, and our governments and large numbers of our scientists are following a false trail?

The bacteria simply help our Earth's carbon cycle, and the Earth is now warming since the ice ages. I'm with the folks not worried about the current warming.

Introducing the brain: all human brains don't react the same
DAVID: Our plastic brain allows us to not be cutout copies of each other.

dhw: So why single out humans?

DAVID: I haven't. The article was a human example. This is another example of how you try to reduce our human exceptionalism, as it certainly upsets Darwin's theory, making us unexpected by it.

dhw: Please make up your mind. You have just agreed that we are not exceptional in being individually different, and now you want to plug exceptionalism! But yes, intellectually we are indeed exceptional. This does not upset Darwin’s theory in the least, since you also believe in common descent. Unexpected by whom?

Darwin's survival theory cannot explain us. Apes survived without our brains.

Genes driving towards sapiens

DAVID: […] The major finding fits what we already knew from archaeology, modern sapiens evolution was on a fast unnatural evolutionary drive. God may have inserted a fast-driving coded process or may have pushed it Himself.

dhw: The “fast-driving coded process” of complexification (with minor expansion) in modern sapiens – which you have agreed works autonomously – is what I call cellular intelligence. What else could it be if it works autonomously?

We do not know how speciation occurs. I say God does it.

Yawning has a real meaning

QUOTE: “…animals with bigger brains tend to yawn longer."

DAVID: Interesting take. I still think I do it when sleepy.

dhw: I was thinking of applying…yawn…for yet another grant…yawn…to study the philosophical and…yawn…biological and social implications of…zzzzzzzz.

Sometimes so-called science is just funny stuff.