More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by dhw, Thursday, May 16, 2024, 11:16 (41 days ago) @ David Turell

Snakes, fungi, wasps and the possum

DAVID: 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: I agree lower animals demonstrate purpose in actions. I am arguing the level of conceptualization required for playing dead. How many occasions of a predator ignoring a corpse would make the concept stick!! Can you guess?

One would be enough. Then Pete the possum tells all his family and friends, and the word spreads, and all his family and friends tell their families and friends, and the strategy is passed on through the generations because it works. No conceptualization required.

One cubic millimetre of brain

DAVID: Darwin theory type of evolution cannot create this.[…]

dhw: 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: […] Of course, our brain is built upon past forms. It is the added complexity that forms a 'giant step'.

dhw: If our brain is built upon past forms, your answer to my 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.

DAVID: The Erectus Sapiens brain jump is a gap like all the gaps that exist in the entire record. Darwin declared constantly in Latin nature didn't jump, a declaration the gaps defy.

Why have you picked on erectus? Heidelbergensis is regarded as our most probable direct ancestor, and his brain was almost the same size as ours, as was the Neanderthal brain.

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?

dhw: 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?

DAVID: GOD!!!

Because……..???

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: I agree, a little of Darwin is left intact.

There are multiple gaps and there are multiple connections. Each connection confirms Darwin.