Human evolution; savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, August 27, 2022, 07:53 (829 days ago) @ David Turell

Brain expansion

DAVID: Well, I'm still with God the future designer and you're not. No surprise.

dhw: Are you still with God as a designer who operates on brains to provide them with excess additional cells before they are needed, and on whales to provide them with flippers before they enter the water?

DAVID: The oversized brain study is now reputed.

And your theory that the new sapiens cells were “excess” is therefore also repudiated. And you still haven't told us why your God was able to give cells the autonomous ability to complexify, but didn't or couldn't give them the autonomous ability to add to their number when necessary.

The rest of this post should be under the heading of David’s theory of evolution, but we’ll leave it here for now.

DAVID: God's direct action at the end was to produce humans, so unusual Adler uses us as proof of God.

dhw: It was not direct. You yourself cannot understand why “at the end” he would have designed various “species” of hominin and homo before finally designing sapiens. That is one of the theories that “make sense only to God”. Yes, you keep telling us that Adler uses us as proof of God. But we are not arguing about proof of God. We are arguing about your theories of evolution which do not make sense to you.

DAVID: And proof of God is part of it. Adler helps my arguments. They all make perfect sense to me. if not to you in your weird pattern of thoughts about your 'possible' God.

dhw: You don’t need to “prove” God if you wish to argue that God’s one and only aim was to design us and our food, but you don’t know why he designed countless species and foods that had no connection with us, or why he designed us in itsy-bitsy stages instead of directly. All you need to do is admit that your theory “makes sense only to God” and therefore it does not make sense to you.

DAVID: God chose to evolve us in itsy-bitsy stages is a perfect logical conclusion, but He never revealed why He chose that methodology.

It is a fact that we evolved in itsy-bitsy stages. It is not a fact that we (plus our food) were your God's one and only purpose, and it is not perfectly logical that an all-powerful God with one purpose in mind should first design countless life forms that had nothing to do with his purpose, or that he should have “chosen” to evolve us in stages although, according to you, he had the power to design life forms with no precursors. He has never revealed his choice of purpose or method to anyone – even if he exists – and since you can’t explain your theory about his purpose and method, you can hardly call it “perfectly logical”.

DAVID: From the beginning of time God knew we were coming!!! That answers your muddle about evolution which God used as His mechanism to create us.

dhw: I have covered the hypothesis that from the beginning he “knew we were coming” (or we were his purpose) by explaining all the disconnected life forms and food bushes which you cannot explain as experiments in his quest to create beings that might recognize him and have a relationship with him (your own concept). But you don’t like the theory because it entails “human” attributes which are not among those you want your God to have.

DAVID: You are again trying to humanize my God to protect your form of god.

dhw: “Protect”? The experimenting alternative offers you a logical explanation for YOUR theory which otherwise doesn’t make sense to you!'

DAVID: It all makes perfect sense from the way I view God, and you don't.

The way you view God is that he had one purpose, and you have no idea why he chose to fulfil his purpose in the manner you propose. Your proposal “makes sense only to God”, and yet you insist that it makes sense to you. Are you God?

dhw: I suggest that he designed what he wanted to design, and that he actually wished for all those countless forms and foods and stages, as life unfolded its ever-changing variety. What better way than to give the original life forms their own means of designing?

DAVID: Answered above.

dhw: Again with your “secondhand” objection. […]

DAVID: Secondhand design is a cumbersome mess, that you don't seem to understand. You've never tried it and I have with firsthand experience.

dhw: Please stop comparing yourself to God.

DAVID: I'm not comparing to God. I am discussing how designing works from my design background, and you know it!!! Stop distorting!!!

You are comparing your method of design to God’s, and it is a total mismatch. You have one plan, and you implement it directly. Then you say that is the efficient way to do it, and so he would not have “delegated” design to other minds (intelligent cells). But although you say that like you, your God had one plan, he did NOT implement it directly! He designed countless life forms that had no connection with his “plan”, and he did not even design his “endpoint” (sapiens) directly, but did countless twiddles before finally getting rid of all the irrelevant twiddles and hominins and homos that were not sapiens. It is all the diversions from your proposed “plan” that (a) you cannot explain, and (b) suggest he is not a Turell, and (c) are logically explained by my alternative theories.