More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 08, 2024, 19:06 (166 days ago) @ dhw

The brain: studies on memory

dhw: Do you decide what you want to play, or has your teacher given you instructions on what you must play? With my theist cap on, I am happy to accept that God may have designed the brain to make decisions. This does not mean that God instructs the brain on what decisions it must take.

DAVID: Why can't His instructions make plasticity by DNA code.? We both know we make brain=based decisions, not God.

dhw: We are not arguing about plasticity! Thank you for agreeing that we/our brains autonomously make our own decisions (and presumably also run the show), and we have agreed that your God may have given us/our brains the wherewithal to autonomously make our own decisions (and run the show). End of discussion.

Yes, as compatibilists.

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.

DAVID: Darwinists constantly subtilty defend his undefendable theory.

dhw: Your hatred of Darwin is abundantly clear when you label his whole theory “undefendable”! Even you support the theory of common descent (with exceptions), and natural selection as an explanation of survival and extinction is pure common sense. The article only attacks the theory of random mutations. And I still don’t know why you think “evolution repeats itself” is “totally overblown Darwin-speak propaganda”!

DAVID: Because you are steeped in it!!

dhw: Do you deny that the major thesis (common descent) behind Darwin’s “undefendable” theory is defendable? And please explain why, although you agree that the article criticizes the “randomness” theory (as I do too), you think “evolution repeats itself” is totally overblown Darwin-speak propaganda.

DAVID: The article was about simple species adaptations, not real evolution. Its headline is phony.

dhw: Nothing to do with Darwin, then, but adaptation plays an enormous role in evolution, sometimes in preserving a species, but sometimes in giving rise to new ones. This adaptation is akin to “convergent evolution”. Nothing “phony” about that, is there?

Suddenly convergent evolution appears to save the day. Nothing in the article about convergence. Species adaptations are simple adaptations, not speciation..