More Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 10, 2024, 19:16 (19 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, 19:23

Origin of humans

DAVID: Your dive into God's brain is your refusal to understand theologian's views. Your logic is not God's logic!

dhw: Nobody knows God’s logic or his purpose or his nature. Not even theologians agree amongst themselves, and I’m sorry, but when you present us with theories which defy logic and depend entirely on irrational faith that the God you wish for is the real God, I don’t “refuse” to understand them. I join you in not understanding them, but I don’t join you in accepting them.

I know that.

Evolution and purpose: teleonomy.

QUOTES:[the authors have explored] “in depth the different ways in which living systems have themselves shaped the course of evolution.”

As this collection compellingly shows, and as bacterial geneticist James Shapiro emphasizes, “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable.”

dhw: I shan’t repeat ID’s answer which, by way of a straw man concerning natural selection, simply objected to the fact that the book appears not to have discussed the origin of life and of intelligent design.

DAVID: You've made a good review. ID accepts God. What you have avoided is the obvious purpose in evolution, the point of the book, which it tries to explain.

dhw: I didn’t avoid it. I wrote: “Of course they design with purpose! Every organism‘s prime purpose is survival, and every evolutionary development either enables survival or improves the chances of survival.”

DAVID: The reviewer is looking for purpose as God evolved us.

dhw: And clearly the book – like Darwin’s Origin of Species – was dedicated to the theory I have bolded above, the point being that evolution is driven by the purposeful actions of the organisms themselves, as they adapt to or exploit new conditions in the great quest for survival. The origin of life and all its mechanisms is a different subject.

And the book asks, what gave those organisms that purposeful drive? Trilobites lasted 250 million years. As Raup shows, only extinction forced a new change. One could ask, lasting that long, why bother to improve survival with a better form?

Handedness origin

dhw: I am applying for a grant to conduct a worldwide survey in order to establish the exact proportion of right and left handedness in monkeys and babies, and how this proportion is proportioned in proportion to the right and left handedness of parents and grandparents. All contributions will be most welcome.

DAVID: From my lefty point of view I'll help.

dhw: I’ll accept contributions from lefties and righties. You know how open-minded I am!

Evolution: transitional fish, Tiktaalik new findings

QUOTE: "'Tiktaalik is remarkable because it gives us glimpses into this major evolutionary transition," Stewart said. "Across its whole skeleton, we see a combination of traits that are typical of fish and life in water as well as traits that are seen in land-dwelling animals."

DAVID: the authors of this article see the purpose in evolution as they describe the advances related to walking.

dhw: It’s truly amazing how frequently we are presented with new findings. My thanks, as always, to David.

This one is very revealing. There is no “advance related to walking”. Different conditions demand different means of locomotion. Fins are better for water, and legs are better for land. In this clear filling of gaps, the authors point out the similarities and developments that confirm the theory of common descent, and they show that the purpose of all these structural changes is to improve the respective organisms’ chances of survival in different environments.

No question Tiktaalik fits the bill.