Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Thursday, April 29, 2021, 08:55 (1302 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

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

dhw: Questions 1 and 2 not answered. Amazingly, your concept of his personality fits in perfectly with one of the versions I have offered: his goal/purpose was to create an ever changing bush of life, he knew exactly what he was doing when he created the mechanisms for the free-for-all, and he has never deviated from it (though he might occasionally dabble).

DAVID: Question 1 is same old illogical complaint fully answered previously.

Never answered. You have no idea why, if your God’s only purpose was to design humans and food supplies, he would first have “chosen” to design countless life forms and their food supplies, 99% of which had no connection with humans and their food supplies.

DAVID: Question 2 is word game playing. God is the symbol of the designing mind running our reality.

“God” is one of several names we give to the designing mind. If he exists, he is the designing mind, and he is not a symbol!

Introducing the brain: all human brains don't react the same
DAVID: Darwin's survival theory cannot explain us. Apes survived without our brains.

dhw: Of course it can explain us. A vast proportion of our inventions, conventions, institutions and lifestyles have arisen out of improvements to our chances of survival. Apes and all the other extant life forms have survived without our brains because they don’t need our brains to survive. How does that invalidate Darwin’s theory?

DAVID: Amazing you don't understand that concept. The complexities of our very civilized world make live more complete and enjoyable, but our survival was guaranteed lo ng ago as long as we don't use our atom bombs.

Amazing how you introduce non sequiturs. Our so-called “civilized” world grew out of our increasingly efficient ways of surviving. Nothing is “guaranteed”, and what has that got to do with the fact that apes didn’t need our brains to survive?

Genes driving towards sapiens

I've moved your comment to the thread on pre-planning.

Embryo timekeeper
QUOTE: These studies revealed many similarities between the segmentation clock of humans and those of other animals. Analogues of the same genes and proteins are involved in mice and humans, for instance.

DAVID: We are all based on the same basic body plans so size of parts plays a big role in what types of species develop. This is highly complex design plan when timing is part of the process. Not by chance.

Also solid evidence for common descent. I agree that it’s not by chance (yee-ha for the possible intelligence of cells!). But my main reason for quoting it is to thank you yet again for all this fascinating information. (You see, I do use the word!)

Immunity at a distance
QUOTE: "In other words, the immune system’s surveillance of the brain is a bit spotty — a downside of the balancing act that evolution has achieved. “Maybe this is a necessary compromise,” Rustenhoven said."

DAVID: The so-called blood brain barrier keeps most chemicals in the blood away from the brain. On the other hand immunity had to be present. teh result is another complex design.

Agreed. It could also be taken for an example of how the cells organize themselves into “balancing acts”. And again, my thanks to you for this continuous education concerning the way living organisms function.