Natures wonders: insect migration (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, December 13, 2021, 17:52 (1074 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I arrived at a fixed position, as you describe it, from reading lots of opinions by very bright folks. Especially Adler and you understand his opinion, I hope, that the appearance of humans offers the BEST proof of God available. Surprise, my 'fixed position' became belief.

The same old dodge. We are not talking about your fixed belief in God, which I accept has a logical base (design), but about your illogical theory that your God individually designed every life form, natural wonder etc., and he did so for the sole purpose of designing humans and their food, although the majority of life forms etc. had no connection with humans and their food

DAVID: Why should I change just because you haven't? We differ in how God designed evolution, and your main concern is that God gave organisms more latitude in their own futuristic designs.

Another old dodge. My main concern is the illogicality of the above bolded theory, which you constantly avoid discussing. “Latitude” of freedom is only one of my alternatives (see below), and designs are responses to changing conditions in the present, not “futuristic”.

DAVID: I have pointed out the big holes in that theory: huge fossil gaps….

Fossils over billions of years are bound to be scarce. Your belief that the gaps denote separate creation - as per Cambrian - conflicts with your belief in common descent and also makes nonsense of your God’s apparent inability to directly design his one and only goal of humans plus food. For example:

QUOTE from “Human evolution”): From this perspective, Middle Pleistocene Homo groups evolved unique traits during periods of isolation and shared features as a result of crossing paths and mating. (David’s bold)

DAVID: the bold supports my theory about the importance of a homo bush providing an excellent combination of necessary traits for the final human form as God guided evolution to the current endpoint.

You take the “huge fossil gaps” as evidence that your God designed species without any predecessors (as in the Cambrian), thereby proving that he can create “de novo” what he wants when he wants, and the next moment you are telling us that all the different predecessors of sapiens contributed bits and pieces to the only species he really wanted to design! And the same principle applies to all life forms and natural wonders that ever existed, because you believe they were all “part of the goal of evolving [=] designing humans” plus food! Obvious possible theistic alternatives: 1) humans plus food were NOT his only goal; 2) he did NOT design each and every life form and natural wonder; 3) he allowed a free-for-all; 4) he was experimenting; 5) he kept getting new ideas.

DAVID: ….and all we know about existing species is they can modify to changing conditions, but are still the same species. So our debate is the cause of new species.

dhw: I have agreed ad nauseam that innovation as an extension of adaptation is a theory that has not been proven.

DAVID: You agree God ran evolution. Your thought that cells are intelligent, not just appearing so, come from those scientists who scrupulously avoid any sense of God, although they might be believers, in their opinions which are not FACT.

Of course the theory is not FACT. Nor is God’s existence, and nor is your anthropocentric theory of evolution. It is not an avoidance of God to allow for him to be the designer of cellular intelligence.

DAVID: I follow just as highly trained folks as your experts, but they believe in God and see evolution as I do. Actually I arrived at my position much before fully embracing ID. We will always differ.

How many of your scientists believe every life form, natural wonder etc., including all those unconnected with humans, was specially designed by your god “as part of the goal of evolving [=designing] humans” and their food. Apparently not even Adler does so.

dhw: You agree that these life forms [bees, ants etc] have the ability to interpret. The attributes involved in bee and ant interpretation include sentience, cognition, information-processing, purpose, and decision-making. I asked how these differ – apart from time and scale – from our own. […]

DAVID: Because they are guided in how to do so by the algorithms you abhor. Like single cells, you are watching primarily unthinking guided behavior from the outside and making a rigid wishful conclusion, not borne out by the scientific evidence being presented. You have admitted seeing the cell automaticity in specific processes and imagine thought behind it! The thought you wish is in the design.

No scientist can tell us how the dance, bridge or web originated. In the case of bees and ants, we know seniors teach juniors. You have no trouble accepting that human learning entails the above attributes and associating them with our “ability to interpret”, which I see as commensurate with autonomous intelligence. The only difference you can find between bee/ant form of learning and ours (apart from time and scale), is your rigid belief that in their case, all these processes are the result of vague algorithms, which is your posh-sounding word for what you used to call a 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every undabbled life form and natural wonder in life's history. See “cellular intelligence” for the rest of the argument.