Natures wonders: archerfish (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 25, 2022, 08:22 (880 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTES: “These features make them a powerful model for studying visual cognition in fish, a group that diverged from its most recent common ancestor with humans roughly 420 million years ago.”

dhw: Quoted simply to emphasize the nature of “common descent”, which means that all life forms (other than the very first) have descended from earlier life forms.
dhw: In the light of today’s post, and indeed all your earlier posts, I presume you believe your God designed the archerfish separately.

DAVID: The archerfish looks like all other fish. God gave/designed the archerfish specialized neurons.

Yep. Thought so. Preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago? Or did he pop in and do a dabble on some pre-archerfish? Or did he design them without any precursors? And why do you think their specially designed neurons were an “absolute requirement” for us and our food?

dhw: Thank you for yet another wonderful illustration of animal intelligence, which “goes beyond purely reflexive reactions” (what you would call automatic behaviour). It doesn’t take much imagination to extend these observations to the amazing intelligence and social behaviour of cells and cell communities. The only thing that prevents some people from taking this step is what Shapiro calls “large organisms chauvinism”.

DAVID: A nice sidestep to my observation about their neuron's probable design.

dhw: Not a sidestep. I have always accepted the logic of the argument for design. I have simply added my own comment, as this whole post is highly relevant to our discussions on animal and cellular intelligence. Thank you again for bringing it to our attention.

DAVID: You are welcome. Design but no designer. Logical???

I’m sorry you don’t wish to comment on the subject of animal and cellular intelligence. Yes, the argument for design is logical. And your God may have been the designer. I am an agnostic. On the other hand, the argument for a sourceless, unknown, unknowable, immaterial being that has simply always been there and designs universes and archerfish neurons sounds more like a fairy tale than reality. I am an agnostic. You might have noticed.