More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, 09:38 (190 days ago) @ David Turell

Snakes, fungi, wasps and the possum

DAVID: All you have done is redescribe the process, avoiding the conceptualization requirement issue.

dhw: My point is that there is NO conceptualization, if by that you mean consciously formulating plans in advance. We don’t know how strategies originate, but the trigger has to be whatever problem needs to be solved. If bacteria can come up with solutions, why can’t snakes, wasps, and our old friend the possum? I find it hard to believe that they all receive precise instructions from your God – whether through a dabble or a 3.8-billion-year-old programme of solutions for all problems – and I think the likeliest explanation is a mixture of intelligence, problem-solving ability, trial and error, and sheer luck. Once the strategy has succeeded, it will be passed on.

DAVID: Nuts!!! There is conceptualization: the prey must think if I do this will the predator do that, in deciding a life-saving maneuver. Problem solving requires conceptual thought.

Strategies/problem-solving may originate through chance incidents (possum sees predator leave dead body), chance meetings (symbionts), no other choice (bird migration), trial and error (bacteria learning how to outwit us). But “conceptual thought” would perhaps come under intelligence, as in ants building bridges. I find that more likely than your divine dabbles or your 3.8-billion-year-old instructions.

Global warming

dhw:[…] yesterday I listed some of the causes and some of the effects of climate change (melting ice caps, deforestation, lost species, pollution tc.). Are you denying that they are all threats to our planet?

DAVID: No threats. Problems to be logically addressed. You as a liberal live in fright. I am very conservative and much less emotional about issues.

dhw: Why do you think a problem doesn’t represent a threat? I don’t care about political labels or degrees of emotion. The damage is real and is escalating. Yes, the problems need to be logically addressed and solved. I'm glad you agree.

DAVID: You use 'threat' and I use 'problem', a vast emotional difference.

So long as we agree that climate change is not a figment of some people’s imagination and needs to be tackled, I couldn’t care less about the degree of emotion expressed in our vocabulary.

One cubic millimetre of brain

DAVID: Darwin theory type of evolution cannot create this.

dhw: […] Do you believe that the sapiens brain was created “de novo”, or that it evolved from earlier brains that were less complex? If it’s the latter, then it’s covered by Darwin’s theory of common descent. […]

DAVID: Yes, what is in our brain has some less complex parts from previous brains. What has been added is a giant single step. Bechly's thought. I use experts to support my research. Bechly has talked to you. He won't go away. Why do you dislike a Ph.D. fellow you don't know.

dhw: Why are you making this personal? Nobody knows the truth about how evolution works, and the fact that you prefer one expert view to another expert view does not get us very far. That is why I asked you my question, which you still haven’t answered. How giant is a giant step? Does it mean that the whole human brain had to be designed “de novo”, or could it be that just as preceding brains had complexified and expanded, the sapiens brain added extra cells and connections to those inherited from our ancestors, and these ultimately complexified to their modern state of superiority?

DAVID: Our brain is vastly different from the erectus brain, based on size, shape, and what we accomplished compared to erectus when both coexisted. Of course, our brain is built upon past forms. It is the added complexity that forms a 'giant step'.

If our brain is built upon past forms, your answer to ny question is no, the sapiens brain was not designed “de novo” but evolved from earlier brains that were less complex – which is in line with Darwin’s theory of common descent. Thank you.

Early water

QUOTE: "If the researchers are correct, lonely outposts of terra firma may have been jutting from the primordial waves earlier than we thought."

DAVID: it happened to our planet, and we ended up with two-thirds of the surface covered. Astronomers are not seeing this elsewhere. Why just us?

Atheists will ask the same question: Why all those trillions of planets etc., and just us with water? The more planets you have, the greater the chance of a stroke of luck. Who would plan trillions if only one was wanted?

New fossils found

DAVID: Yes, a new helpful fossil is found, but the main gap remains, and most likely will remain. The missing fossil argument is a prayer to save Darwinism a theory filled with multiple gaps in the record and multiple saltations of new species.

Every new link confirms the theory of common descent. At best, then, your belief has to be that Darwin’s theory is correct, but that your God also used direct creation when he wanted to. Darwin did not exclude God as the Creator, and you cannot exclude Darwin in your explanation of how evolution works.