More miscellany (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, July 07, 2024, 08:52 (103 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

DAVID: The basic answer is proportionality. […] That is how theologians handle it. The Dayenu approach.
And:
DAVID: I went to several 'standard' theological websites on theodicy. They are all the same. I have no need to do the whole theological universe.

dhw: […] Please stop pretending that the answer is to pretend there is no problem.

DAVID: Proportionality' admits a problem exists.

And its solution to the problem is to forget about the problem because there is far more good than evil. You have ignored at least two other common theological explanations (human free will, God’s punishment) as well as your own (God’s “challenge”, and God’s desire to make life more interesting). So much for your “standard response”.

Offshoot from Giraffes

DAVID: Evolution works by culling 99.9%. The resulting 0.1% are a superb result of the process. Why are you complaining? God handled His purpose beautifully.

dhw: According to you, it is not evolution that culls 99.9% but your God, who deliberately designed them, knowing that they were irrelevant and he would have to cull them. You say he handled his purpose imperfectly, messily, cumbersomely and inefficiently, all of which means "beautifully".[…]

DAVID: I repeat: Adler used Darwinian theory to show God's sole purpose were humans. It is simply the logical reverse of Adler's proof of God in his book.

dhw: I’m not arguing with Adler but with you. YOU say God invented a method of evolution which was imperfect, inefficient etc. for the purpose you impose on him (Hyde’s reasoning) but which was beautifully handled (Jekyll’s wish for a perfectly efficient God). Do you want me to repeat all your other contradictions?

DAVID: No contradictions: I have a religious God and a philosophical God. Two views of the same God.

In your theory of evolution, your “religious” God is perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, and handles evolution beautifully, while your “philosophical” God is imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient. That is your “dichotomy”, or your schizophrenic Jekyll and Hyde, but still you refuse to acknowledge the blatant contradiction, and refuse to consider the possibility that your theory might be wrong.

Plants control water in the desert

dhw: ... Put your comment together with my own, and you have an extremely feasible theory: yes, design by intelligent plants is the answer. And maybe plant intelligence was designed by your God.

DAVID: And maybe God designed the DNA directions to help this desert plant in its ecosystem helping the insects there with water supply.

dhw: Did your God tell himself he must design the crassula muscosa or we humans will perish? At best, I’d have thought if he did design the irrelevant 99.9% and the crassula muscosa, you might revert to your earlier certainty that he enjoys creating – but your Mr Hyde rules out the possibility of your God enjoying anything, because although your God probably/possibly has human-like thought patterns and emotions, he certainly doesn’t have human-like thought patterns and emotions.

DAVID: Yes, you understand my problem.

Thank you for recognizing your problem, which is the utter absurdity of trying to defend blatant contradictions in your own theories, and in opposition to alternatives. Perhaps it is time for you to open your mind.

Introducing the brain

DAVID: Bit by bit the deep complexity of our brain is yielding its secrets, in the most complex living organ in the universe. It originated in the Cambrian Explosion without precursors and evolved to our form. By far it is the strongest argument for a designer.

dhw: I’ve always accepted that the Cambrian “gap” is real, but I’ve always felt uncomfortable with the authoritative statement that there were no precursors. A common explanation (also Darwin’s) is that the fossil record is and was always bound to be incomplete. Purely out of curiosity, I’ve done some googling, and came across the following article […]
For reasons of space, I shan’t reproduce yesterday’s quote, as the conclusion is enough:
QUOTE: “The planarian is thus not only the first animal to possess a brain, but may be the ancestor of the vertebrate brain.”
It’s only a theory, but planarians apparently go back 839 million years, i.e. 300 million years before the Cambrian.

DAVID: Great find!! I reviewed the article, and a tiny set of neurons are described. Interestingly in the Ediacaran Fossil Group are they plants or animals is discussed, and the preservation is poor, no brains are described. But the planarians had a very early form so the gap to Cambrian brains is still a mighty gap.

You claimed that the brain originated in the Cambrian without precursors. The article says that there were precursors. Of course there are mighty gaps between primitive early forms and later complexities, but if planarian brains may be the ancestors of vertebrate brains, we can hardly say for sure that the vertebrate brain had no precursors!