More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by dhw, Thursday, May 23, 2024, 14:01 (25 days ago) @ David Turell

Sapiens brain

DAVID: The enormous complexity of our brain was shown in a previous entry. It well may represent a huge gap, denying Darwinism.

dhw: I am not denying the enormous complexity of our brain, which you have just agreed has been created by the brain itself. And the brain itself evolved from ancestral brains, as per Darwin.

DAVID: As designed by God, as it is obvious natural evolution won't accomplish our brain.

If by “natural” you mean random, then I have long ago accepted that the complexities of ALL organs and organisms are such that there is a potent argument for design. That does not alter your agreement that the sapiens brain evolved from earlier brains, and was not created “de novo”.

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.

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

DAVID: ID accepts God designed humans by evolving them.

dhw: So it’s not true that scientists don’t mention God by rule. How many of your ID scientists tell us that their God inherited a rule that forced him to inefficiently design 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with his one and only purpose?

DAVID: ID scientists are the exception. 'ID accepts God designed humans by evolving them."

And I’m sure ID supports the theory that God designed the mechanisms that created all of life (not just humans) and enabled evolution. Does it support your theory that your God designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species irrelevant to his one and only purpose? Does Shapiro’s theory exclude the possibility that your God designed the mechanisms that created life and evolution?

Experimentation

DAVID: A woolly stumbling God who has to experiment? Find a theologian who supports that view of God!

dhw: If early forms of flight were successful and continued experimentation led to jet planes and rockets, or if early tools led to more and more new inventions, is that “woolly and stumbling”? Can you find a theologian who supports your view that your God is so inefficient that he deliberate designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species, because they had nothing to do with his one and only purpose.

DAVID: All of ID folks.

I find it hard to accept that all ID-ers believe the theory that your God is an inefficient designer. Do they also support your belief that he probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours but is certainly not human in any sense?

Philosopher on free will

We can drop this now, but I’ll bring it back if Matt raises the subject again.

Stephen Talbott’s view

QUOTES: And given a human culture upon which all life and evolution on earth now depends, we are, you might say, the alpha and omega of the evolutionary story. What seems incontrovertible is that we represent the highest and furthest reach of the thinking — which is to say, the ideas and meaning — taking form in evolving earthly life."

"And so we have the privilege of discovering ever more fully the connections, not only between our highest functioning and the intelligence of the cells in our bodies, but also between our own minds and the entire, far-from-mindless creative drama of life on this planet."

DAVID: for Talbott there is an agency which caused evolution. We are the pinnacle of that process, and now we control it. Do not denigrate our exceptionality! It has its own important meaning in this reality.

dhw: I don’t know who you think might denigrate our exceptionality. This is a superb summing-up of our exceptionality and our responsibilities (which I take to be a reference to the manner in which we are currently threatening life on earth), and even including a direct confirmation of the theory of cellular intelligence! Thank you, David and Stephen.

DAVID: Talbott is fascinated by purpose in all biological activity. He sees agency.

I agree with him that there is purpose in all biological activity, and would suggest that the purpose is survival, for which his reference to cellular intelligence is highly relevant. I don’t know if elsewhere he evokes God as the “agent”, though I do know from elsewhere that he quite rightly rejects “natural selection” as a creative force – it creates nothing; it only determines which organisms will survive.