More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 21, 2024, 12:09 (27 days ago) @ David Turell

Snakes, fungi etc.

dhw: So you believe our fellow creatures can’t pass on information. What’s your own theory then? That your God went round to all the possums, inserting a programme for death-feigning? […] Is this what all your theologians have taught you?

DAVID: Nothing from theology here. Preprogramming or dabbling.

And I strongly suspect there is nothing from theology even remotely like the contradictions I have listed on the evolution thread. And yet you say you follow theology’s strict attributes and guidelines.

Sapiens brain

DAVID: Sapiens brain added to past complex brains with a vast increase in complexity prior to future complexification by the same brain.

dhw: So sapiens brain was not created “de novo” but evolved as per Darwin from earlier brains. Thank you.

DAVID: Like all the gaps in Darwinian evolution, the complexity gap is real.

dhw: But the complexity gap is the work of the brain cells and connections. Even you are surely not proposing that your God has twiddled every complexification.

DAVID: God let the complexification process He gave our brain to work on its own.

Thank you. Even if your God created the process, our brain was not created “de novo” but evolved from earlier brains, as per Darwin.

New fossils found

dhw (re Shapiro’s theory): You said “unsupported”. How many scientists actively support your theory that your God inherited a rule that forced him to design 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with his one and only purpose?

DAVID: Scientists don't mention God, by rule.

I thought you said that many ID scientists now talk explicitly of God. How many of them support the above theory?

Neanderthal genes in humans

DAVID: this answers the question of why so many forms of human ancestors if God was in charge. Why not go directly to sapiens? Both Neanderthal and Denisovan genes have supplied helpful genes. That is an answer.

No it isn’t. You go on and on about his power to create species “de novo”, so if he’d only wanted sapiens, he could have popped in all the genes he’d wanted without bothering with all the genes that were irrelevant to sapiens. The many forms fit in perfectly, however, with an experimenting God.

Philosopher on free will

No need for analysis here, but it always surprises me that people discussing the subject don’t start off by defining what “will” is supposed to be free from. We had long discussions on this in the past. Clearly our will is not free to make impossible decisions. I can’t waggle my ears and fly, or break out of jail, or force peace on Hamas and the Israelis. And so the question is whether, within given constraints, we do or don’t have freedom. My own conclusion is that if you define it as being free from influences beyond your control, then you don’t have it. None of us can possibly know to what extent our decisions have been formed by our genes, upbringing, environment, illness, accident, chance occurrences etc. However, the converse argument will be that all those influences have gone to make up the unique identity of our individual self (see the Nibbana thread), and so every decision we make is made by our self and by nobody else. In that sense, it is free.