Return to David's theory of evolution PART ONE (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, December 16, 2021, 15:51 (1071 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Based only very weakly on the fact that existing large brains can slightly enlarged heavily used areas. We can only use our brain for facts. Tiny past brains had some plasticity limited by their size and lesser complexity. Doesn't tell us why they enlarged.

dhw: Again, we’ve been over this. it is not based only on slight enlargements but on the fact that the brain is known to change its structure when implementing new tasks. Previously the changes would have been minor complexifications until more cells were needed. With sapiens, I propose that further expansion would have been dangerous, and so complexification became the main process for implementing new tasks. But nobody actually knows why they enlarged, which is why we have different theories. What "known facts" support your theory of divinely preprogrammed or dabbled enlargements?

The obvious facts that ID'ers point to constantly. Only design can create the complexities we see in living organisms.

dhw: I accept that evolution of all species proceeds in stages, and if God exists, I accept that this was his choice of creation. I do not accept that he chose to individually design every single life form, natural wonder etc., and since most of them had no connection with humans and their food, I do not accept that his sole purpose in designing them was to achieve what you believe to have been his one and only goal of designing homo sapiens and his food.

DAVID: I know. None of your thoughts tell us how humans with consciousness appeared, well beyond natural necessity for simple survival. Only Adler's answer fits.

dhw: Nobody knows how consciousness itself appeared. Nobody even knows how life appeared. Adler, you have told us, uses humans to “prove” that God exists. You can expand that argument to all life forms, as you do in your books, because even micro-organisms are a complex design. However, my disagreement with you in all these discussions is NOT over God’s existence but over your illogical anthropocentric interpretation of life’s history, your God’s purpose, and his method of achieving that purpose.

You accept that God created history, and then deny that same history. Evolution occurred, produced humans, so God did it, as I see God in charge.

dhw: […] name, say, three scientists who believe that your God individually designed every life form etc. as bolded above.

DAVID: Behe, Meyer, Demski.
I always thought that Behe specifically avoided mentioning God, let alone God’s purpose.

I looked up Dembski, and this was the first thing I came upon:
INTELLIGENT DESIGN - Bill Dembski
https://billdembski.com/documents/2003.08.Encyc_of_Relig.htm

QUOTE: “Because a sign is not the thing signified, intelligent design does not presume to identify the purposes of a designer. Intelligent design focuses not on the designer’s purposes (the thing signified) but on the artifacts resulting from a designer’s purposes (the sign). What a designer intends or purposes is, to be sure, an interesting question, and one may be able to infer something about a designer’s purposes from the designed objects that a designer produces. Nevertheless, the purposes of a designer lie outside the scope of intelligent design.”

dhw: I don’t know how Behe and Dembski can support your theory that your God’s one and only purpose (goal) was to design H. sapiens plus food if Behe doesn’t talk of God, and Dembski doesn’t talk of purpose. I didn’t bother to find out about Meyer.

Since you have barely dipped your toe into ID you know nothing of ID's approach. For public consumption God is never mentioned. They simply use the force of complexity to demand the existence of an unnamed designer. I've talked with Behe personally. He believes. They all do, but the point is to keep religion out of it. Stephen C. Meyer finally didn't:

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-return-of-the-god-hypothesis-compelling-scientific-ev...

Read the address above to see my point. Meyer is an IDer.