More miscellany (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, June 27, 2024, 12:12 (72 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: My theology tells me God chose an imperfect system perfectly, for His own reasons. With His omniscience, it was the proper correct choice.

dhw: May I suggest that a God who illogically chooses an imperfect and inefficient method to get what he wants is less likely than a God who logically chooses a perfect and efficient method to get what he wants (as in my alternative, theistic explanations of evolution).

DAVID: You turn our God into a human.

How many more times? I do not turn him into a two-legged physical being. I propose that he has created us with certain attributes of his own - the Bible says “in his own image”, which can hardly mean two legs and ears he can waggle – and you agree that “of course, He may have human-like attributes”. Why do you think a God who invents a perfect and efficient method to get what he wants is more human than a God who keeps messing things up and having to cull 99.9% of what he had designed?

God’s “challenge”
dhw: ...And what might have been his purpose for challenging us?

DAVID: Back to theodicy. The bad are side effects of the greater good.

dhw: Yes, yes, we know you think the sufferings of millions should be ignored in any discussion of theodicy. Now please tell us why you think your God wanted to “challenge” us by creating the bad problems for us to solve.

DAVID: He gave us the brain to do it.

But why did he want to challenge us?

Giraffes
QUOTE: "If you could assemble all these fossil bits and pieces into a short film replaying giraffe evolution, you wouldn’t end up with the smooth transformation of a small-statured herbivore into a towering, checkered browser. There’d be starts and stops and side stories, the ending not being a goal but a happenstance."

DAVID: Obviously, God is action designing.

dhw: The headline is:
How the Giraffe Got Its Long Neck: It Happened in Spurts
So apparently God designs in starts and stops and spurts and ends up with a happenstance. Sounds like a God experimenting rather than a God with a fixed goal, don’t you think? Or a God who initiated a free-for-all.

DAVID: I think giraffes were a goal-directed design bit by bit even if in spurts.

And other people would argue that giraffes evolved naturally bit by bit in spurts, and if there was a God whose goal was to design giraffes (because, apparently he could not have designed humans plus our food without giraffes), why would he specially design them in so many stops and starts, since he was perfectly capable of designing species “de novo”?

Proper delivery of proteins

Cells constantly produce proteins with controlled delivery:

DAVID: this article raises the usual question. How does a blind natural process find exact protein components? What is more likely is a designer at work.

dhw: If we accept the theory that life began with single cells which had the ability not only to reproduce but also to make changes to themselves, it makes perfect sense that when they formed communities, they would increase the range of their abilities through cooperation with one another. None of the processes that have evolved over billions of years are “blind” – they are all the consequence of cells responding to different requirements. The great mystery is the origin of life in the form of cells which can not only reproduce but can also make changes to themselves. I agree that these miraculous abilities provide a good case for a designer.

DAVID: Thank you.

I hope your thank you covers all of the above!

Social adaptability in macaques

Xeno: Clearly, the macaques are at least able to sequester their previous behavior to permit continued survival. This suggests the following:
1. Memory of past aggression
2. Enough consciousness to realize some level of individual self-control.
3. A willingness to try a non-aggressive strategy to get desired outcomes which directly implies
4. The ability to plan and adjust. You have to be able to imagine different outcomes to pick a different strategy.
bbbWhat this study directly assaults is the idea that macaques are automatons that react via instinct. They think like we do, sans language. (dhw's bold)

DAVID: I agree this was a thoughtful decision.

dhw: I agree completely. And I would extend the bolded comment to all organisms, though with the obvious proviso that our own human range of thought goes way, way, way beyond the limits of other life forms.

DAVID: I agree.

An important agreement in the light of our discussions on intelligence, and on the growing belief in the theory of cellular intelligence.