More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, June 09, 2024, 17:10 (17 days ago) @ dhw

The brain: studies on memory

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.

DAVID: Yes, as compatibilists.

dhw: I don’t know why you have dragged compatibilism into this. “Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent.” (Wikipedia) You have just agreed that we/our brains make the decisions and your God doesn’t. What is this supposed to be “compatible” with?

We both are compatibilists, I think, but you've expressed doubts about free will.

Examples of Darwinist thinking: Insect adaptations

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 I still don’t know why 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?

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

dhw: The fact that certain species repeat earlier solutions to the same problems is “akin to” the fact that different species come up with the same solutions to the same problems. The borderline between adaptation and innovation is difficult to draw: for instance, pre-whale legs turned into flippers. All irrelevant to your labelling Darwin’s whole theory as undefendable, and your description of “evolution repeats itself” as phony and “totally overblown Darwin-speak propaganda”. I suppose you’d only be happy if the authors said: “God repeats himself”.

Is the heaadline phony or not?

Cyanobacteria

DAVID: this is one of the major Gould contingencies that led to us. For me there is an issue as to what advantage cyanobacteria gained from increasing the range of chlorophyll activity? It allowed a larger range of ecosystems. This is why I look at purpose as a driving force from a designer.

dhw: Of course purpose is a driving force for any action! That does not mean that every action in the history of evolution was driven by the one and only purpose of creating us plus food.

Purpose is the result of mental activity. Thank you.

Oxygen and the Cambrian

QUOTE: "It seems these bursts of oxygen, assisted by the worms' excavations, helped life's spectacular diversity boom on Earth."

DAVID: an interesting theory based on solid work. To be clear, oxygen allowed diversification, but was not the cause of the Cambrian Explosion or the later diversifications.

dhw: It is interesting, and I agree: an increase in oxygen won’t CAUSE speciation unless there are already species present which can use the oxygen to diversify. Or, in your theory, to enable your omnipotent and omniscient God at long, long last – after designing and culling all those irrelevant species - to create “de novo” the only species he actually wanted to create (us plus food) from the very beginning.

Yes, God works in mysterious ways.