Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing: cognition (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, November 02, 2021, 12:12 (1118 days ago) @ David Turell

Common design
dhw: […]if humans were his only goal, why did he specially design all the life forms and foods that had no connection with humans? This is the question you keep dodging.

DAVID: It is not a question in my mind!! What is evolution but to design each stage with more complexity? All the bush creates food for all, which is turn supports food for humans.

Here we go again.How do all the foods of the past “support” food for humans in the present? How did all the life forms of the past that had no connection with humans form “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” and their food?

DAVID: I need no other answer. You seem to ask for direct creation in your objection, as I've noted before. But that is not what happened.

No, it’s not, and that is why I question your theory as bolded above. But see “Miscellany” for your sudden repudiation of the term “goal”.

DAVID: The bold implies (for the zillionth time) why not direct creation of only his final desired humans. That didn't happen for God's reasons. I don't know his reasons.

dhw: And that is the whole problem. You claim that your theory is logical, but you can’t explain it. Your theory is opinion, not fact. And if it doesn’t make sense to you, maybe it is wrong.

DAVID: What to explain? God chose to evolve us. Your quote above: "dhw: If he exists, then yes, he chose evolution for every life form, including humans" is my answer also.

But it is not an answer to the bolded questions above.

dhw: […]the problem we were dealing with was your insistence that we humans are descended from bacteria, but we are not descended from bacteria because we are descended from Cambrian life forms which had no precursors. Please explain this apparent contradiction.

DAVID: The contradiction is your lack of understanding my point: the gap is in form only as Darwin knew with his descent from a common ancestor. The underlying continuity is in the original biochemical processes that create life. Evolution is just change in form simple to complex. Darwin and I see the same gap. Don't you?

The gap is caused by the apparently sudden appearance of NEW FORMS. As you rightly say, evolution (speciation) is change in form, not in biochemical processes. And so your theory that your God created new FORMS with no predecessors, and that we are descended from those forms, can only mean that our species (= form) is NOT descended from bacteria. Of course the argument against this is that we ARE descended from bacteria, and the Cambrian gap is not due to God popping in to start a brand new array of forms, but to a lack of fossils and/or the ability of intelligent cells to make major as well as minor jumps in response to changing conditions.

DAVID How do you think about scientific discoveries? Are they additive? If so, we scientists can expect further understanding as Dawkins writes, even as I disagree with his opinions. Just as think cogitating cell brains will not be found.

dhw: Of course scientific discoveries are additive. But if there is no scientific consensus on a theory, it is unscientific to draw definitive conclusions while hoping for/anticipating future evidence, and to reject alternative explanations as you and Dawkins do.

DAVID: Both Dawkins and I anticipate more explanation to support our theories. As theories we will change them if new findings correct us.

Exactly. So the two of you go on hammering out your conclusions drawn from inadequate evidence, and slagging each other off as if your conclusions were already scientifically proven, whereas you can only hope that you will be proved right. Such hopes colour your thinking and replace science with faith. […]

DAVID: […] Dredged up wrong point from my Guth example: he invented the inflation theory based on early evidence. Followup work strongly supported him. Just showing that Dawkins and I anticipate conformations as usually happens to most but not all theories.

My apologies. I thought you were trying to restore your reputation and his after the fiasco of the time theory. We needn’t dwell on the obvious fact that some theories are proven right and some are proven wrong. The whole point is that until there is scientific consensus on a theory (the best we can expect, as final objective truths are unlikely in certain contexts), it will remain unproven. It is therefore unscientific to assume or hope that one’s own as yet unproven theory will be confirmed by science, and to dismiss equally unproven alternatives because they are not proven! This puts you and Dawkins on the same level of blinkered, unscientific faith.

Dopamine
DAVID: […] the odds for life on a finding basis for one bacteria is 2x10^100,000,000,000!!! (quote in my science vs religion book, page 77). Only a finding designer fits.

dhw: I have always agreed that the complexity of life is one of the strongest arguments for a designer. Don’t you wish Dawkins was open-minded enough to agree?

DAVID: I don't care what Dawkins thinks. He is only worth ignoring.

He would say the same about you. Unscientific pots and kettles, the two of you.