Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, May 02, 2021, 22:39 (1092 days ago) @ dhw

We change ecosystems

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

dhw: What “climate confusion”? Are you now telling us that the climate is not changing, or that any changes are not liable to cause huge damage to our ecosystems? If it’s true that the main cause is human activity, then of course we should be powerful enough to control it. The question then is whether certain powerful human institutions are willing to make the necessary sacrifices.

Giving up fossil fuels will create economic chaos

Tadpoles and the hypothalamus

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

dhw: Your usual statement of opinion as if it were fact. That is why I have listed various alternative possibilities.

My belief from design evidence is only God can speciate.

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.

We have no evidence how speciation occurs, only theories. The designs of living biochemistry tells me a designing mind must do it.

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

dhw: And so instead you dragged in your old tired theory that God designed every species. I have painstakingly pointed out the illogicality of your old tired theory. Now please point out any illogicality in the various theories referred to above, bearing in mind that in the past you have acknowledged that they are all logical.

Your so-called logical theories all start with a highly humanized God who likes free-for-all evolution and needs to experiment. I have never found your intelligent cell theory logical.

Brain and body sizes

DAVID: You want our sapiens brain to appear because of new natural requirements creating a new species.

dhw: I don’t “want” anything. I am searching for logical explanations. I find it perfectly feasible that both speciation in general and the human brain in particular could be the result of organisms responding to new requirements.

Or be newly designed to fit the new needs

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Another of your gigantic non sequiturs! I have never queried the facts of complexity, or your argument that this requires design! And if by “material naturalism” you mean atheism, you should know by now that I am an agnostic. The theory I have offered here to explain the evolution of species and of the human brain allows for God as the designer of the mechanism that has made evolution possible. But instead of your control freak who individually designs not only every life form, but every lifestyle and every natural wonder, even stepping in to give courses to weaverbirds on how to build their nests, I propose a God who has given life forms the wherewith all to do their own designing.

I know that. We both have theories.