Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, May 01, 2021, 19:50 (1092 days ago) @ dhw

We change ecosystems
DAVID: The importance of ecosystems cannot be overemphasized. Living organisms naturally form cooperative systems and our overall dominance upsets them with plant systems, animal systems or combinations. We have severely affected the Earth's evolution.

dhw: We are in agreement. But this leaves me surprised at your sceptical attitude concerning climate change, much of which is due to human activity (let’s forget about the bacterial contribution). I wonder if your God is watching with interest to see how far our specialness will lead us along the path of destruction and self-destruction!

Your climate confusion leads you to think we humans are powerful enough to control it.

Tadpoles and the hypothalamus
DAVID: Since present stages of evolution are all based on past designs, this study of the earliest forms leading to what is contained in our present brains is not surprising. God pre-plans His stages.

dhw: As always I appreciate these articles. And as always, you can’t resist a final, authoritative statement. OK, my turn. God experiments. God learns as he goes along. God enjoys creating different forms for their own sake. Cell communities hard at work inventing their own ways of improving their chances of survival. Let’s have some good old agnostic balance…

God gave the cells some degree of adaptation, but intelligent cells don't speciate, God does.

dhw: Can you see anything in the known history of life that contradicts this theory?[/i]

DAVID: We disagree. God ran evolution directly. not secondhand, to produce the current bush.

dhw: I asked you if there was anything in the known history of life that contradicts my theory. “I disagree” plus reiteration of your own fixed belief is not an answer.

You simply dragged in your old tired cell intelligence theory, so I disagreed.

Brain and body sizes
DAVID: We don't know what causes the triggering of any aspect of evolution from a natural viewpoint.

dhw: If brain changes are triggered by environmental pressures, we have a logical thesis: that they respond to new conditions, either by adapting or by innovating.

I’ll leave out the quote about elephants etc, since you have ignored it. The writer thought our unique brain had developed because we cooked our food. I’ll reproduce my response to this, as it sums up the whole argument about how and why our brain expanded.

dhw: In other words, the brain did not get bigger BECAUSE Mr Man roasted the deer he had killed with his spear, and (David’s theory) it did not get bigger because God gave it new cells so that afterwards it could think of inventing spears and using fire. It got bigger, just as it now complexifies, by RESPONDING TO NEW REQUIREMENTS. Can you find any logical flaws in this argument and its conclusion?

DAVID: You want a natural explanation. Our brain is too complex for natural causes. It had to be planned by an extremely brilliant mind, that is by intelligent design by God.

dhw: You hate it when I apply logic to your own theories and find them wanting, but on this thread I have twice asked you to apply logic to my theories, and all I get is a repetition of your own beliefs. I have always allowed for your God having a role (in this case, as designer of the mechanism that granted autonomy in the first place). Bearing this in mind, if you find my explanations logical, please just say so. You've done it before, and it won’t kill you.

The only adaptations we know about are quite simple species alterations. You want our sapiens brain to appear because of new natural requirements creating a new species. So you accept material naturalism with no basis in fact, opposed to my approach as I use the facts of design complexity to propose a designing mind.