More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by dhw, Friday, May 17, 2024, 13:50 (188 days ago) @ David Turell

Snakes, fungi, wasps and the possum

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?

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Pete is not human!!! He can't tell his friends! You write children's books famously, but don't produce them here! Another example of how you put in a human in action where he doesn't belong.

Do you really believe that our fellow creatures can’t communicate? This is “large organisms chauvinism” gone crazy.

Early human hunting weapons

QUOTE: Not only did they communicate together to topple prey, but they were sophisticated enough to organize the butchering and roasting."

DAVID: This ancient big game hunting requires coordination of actions of a team of folks. They could not have done this without some understandable vocal communications. Not true organized language as we know it, but meaningful grunts and gestures. We think in our language, but I wonder how did they think to invent these weapons, so long ago.

You just cannot understand that any organisms that live in a community must have their own means of communication. For all you know, a single grunt might mean: “Look out, guys, there’s one of those sapiens idiots approaching who thinks we can’t communicate.”

Sea otters use tools

DAVID: Female dolphins, chimps and bonobos are also known to use tools.

Birds use tools too. Our fellow creatures are not as stupid as some people like to think.

One cubic millimetre of brain

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.

dhw; 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.

DAVID: Heidelbergensis is not that ancestor, per Bechly.

I have no idea whether Bechly is the ultimate authority on our ancestry, but even if he is, it is nonsense to argue that our brain is a giant jump when there were Heidelhomos and Neanderhomos with brains of a similar size to ours.

Early water

DAVID: 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!!!

dhw: Because……..???
DAVID: He wanted one special planet, ours.

And therefore, despite his omnipotence and omniscience, he had to create trillions of planets etc. not like ours.

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: A tiny portion of Darwin.

Please tell us the proportion of species proven to have been created “de novo” during the last 3.8 billion years.

INTEROCEPTION

QUOTE: "Powerful signals travel from the heart to the brain, affecting our perceptions, decisions and mental health. And the heart is not alone in talking back. Other organs also send mysterious signals to the brain in ways that scientists are just beginning to tease apart.

Yet again, we have confirmation that our bodies consist of cell communities that communicate with one another.