More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, June 05, 2024, 18:28 (169 days ago) @ dhw

The brain: studies on memory

DAVID: God designed the brains' plasticity which mimics autonomy.

dhw: So the brain “runs the show” and “takes its own decisions”, actually means that the brain doesn’t run the show and doesn’t take its own decisions, but God runs the show and takes all the decisions. It’s amazing what one can do with language.

No God doesn't run the show. His DNA instructions do it.

Moths fake out bats

DAVID: [..] God chose to evolve us as the best way to do it.

dhw: But you’ve forgotten that he also chose to evolve (by which you mean design) and cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us plus our food. So your omnipotent and omniscient God had to use an imperfect, inefficient way to do what he chose to do. And this makes sense to you, though you cannot find a single reason why he would act in such a way.

DAVID: See other thread. Adler says we cannot ever know God's reasons and it is not wise to try.

dhw: Adler says: “Divine inscrutability precludes us from ever asking the reason why God does anything.” It is therefore totally against Adler’s guidelines to announce that the one and only reason why your God designed life was to produce us and our food, and that the one and only reason why your omniscient and omnipotent God inefficiently designed 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us and our food was that there was no better way he could do it. Stop defying your mentor.

Not defying your ignorance. I know more than you do about Adler: " And His purpose was defined in Adler's book: "The difference in Man and the Difference it Makes", that is a proof of God because humans are so unusual. You don't know Adler."

New stromatolites

DAVID: Not luck if by design.

dhw: If your God wanted a free-for-all, he would have designed the conditions that would lead to a free-for-all. Survival by luck (Raup) does not mean survival by design (Turell).

God does not deal in Raupian luck.

Examples of Darwinist thinking: Insect adaptations

DAVID: My hatred is of total misuse of Darwin.

dhw: I still don’t know why “evolution really does repeat itself” constitutes totally overblown Darwin-speak propaganda, but it’s refreshing to hear you defending Darwin against those who “misuse” him.

Darwinists constantly subtilty defend his undefendable theory.

GIRAFFES' NECKS (LAMARCK)

QUOTE: Why do giraffes have such long necks? A study led by Penn State biologists explores how this trait might have evolved and lends new insight into this iconic question. The reigning hypothesis is that competition among males influenced neck length, but the research team found that female giraffes have proportionally longer necks than males -- suggesting that high nutritional needs of females may have driven the evolution of this trait.

dhw: My word, we are truly facing the “iconic” issues of life now. Slight muddle I detect: why do giraffes have such long necks is a different question from why do females have proportionally longer necks than male giraffes. These are surely two separate projects which should have been given separate funding. The possibility that giraffes have long necks to enable them to reach food other animals can’t reach seems very reasonable to me, although I’m not a giraffologist. As for the fact that female necks are “proportionally” longer than male necks, this is clearly part of what we now call “woke” culture. I mean, dammit, why should male giraffes have access to leaves that female giraffes can’t reach? Male giraffes have longer forelegs than females, and it is obviously far easier to stretch the neck than it is to stretch the legs. A few generations of neck-stretching to put the female on a level with the male would therefore have led to proportionally longer necks. And so the male can no longer say: “Yah boo, I got nicer leaves than you did!” Female giraffes were way ahead of their time. Nobel Prize beckoning?

I'm delighted you enjoyed this gobbledygook

dhw: Meanwhile, I am applying for a grant to investigate why human males generally have hairier chests than human females. All contributions will be gratefully received.

And male lions have their giant manes.