More miscellany (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 10, 2024, 19:52 (134 days ago) @ dhw

Theodicy

dhw: Same subject under “the complexity of cell division”

DAVID: That the cellular processes work so well is part of the proportionality defense of theodicy.

dhw: Let’s try a different approach: Fred Bloggs performed wonders with his charitable work. For 50 years, he helped poor people, providing them with food and shelter. There was just one day when he raped and murdered a little girl. The defence pleads “proportionality”: 50 years of good against 1 day of bad. Your verdict? In considering this, please bear in mind that your omniscient God knew exactly what suffering his murderous viruses (e.g. 50 million fatalities in 1918/19), floods, famines, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes etc. would cause, not to mention his foreknowledge of all the human-made evils he allowed to happen (e.g. 6 million Jews exterminated in the Holocaust) by giving humans free will, which Plantinga – your fellow religious philosopher – attributed to your God’s human-like desire to be spontaneously loved.

Amazing that believers can live with your complaints. Proportionality is our answer.

Back to David’s “schizophrenia”

DAVID: I live with two active, somewhat combative approaches. Yours is totally neutral, hiding behind 'maybe'.

dhw: Not “somewhat combative” but completely contradictory. And yes, my approach is neutral. I simply admit that I don’t know whether God exists or not, and if he does, I don’t know what might be his nature, purpose(s) and wishes, but I offer logical, theoretical "maybe" alternatives. I must confess, however, that if he does exist, I have grave doubts about the theory that he would have invented an imperfect and inefficient method to achieve his purpose(s), that he enjoys creating but cannot possibly enjoy creating because he isn’t human in any way although he probably has human-like attributes, that he is all-good, all-powerful and all-knowing, but knowingly created or allowed evil, which nevertheless means he is benevolent.

My God is all-powerful and omniscient. He sets goals and achieves them. We don't know if we can apply human attributes to Him.

Introducing the brain

QUOTE: “The planarian is thus not only the first animal to possess a brain, but may be the ancestor of the vertebrate brain.”

DAVID: That primitive neurons existed before them does not remive the concept of de novo creation of brains.

dhw: Please tell me how an article which suggests that the planarian brain may have been the ancestor of the vertebrate brain comes to mean that the planarian brain could not have been the ancestor of more complex brains.

DAVID: I am discussing differences you seem blinded to. Do you think the planarian neuron is anywhere equal to our pyramidal neuron? Yes, it is a primitive ancestor with a huge gap to the CAmrian forms.

dhw: Of course the primitive ancestor is not equal to the complex descendant! And of course there is a huge gap between the primitive and complex. That describes the whole process of evolution! “De novo” means without precursors. How can a complex brain with a primitive ancestor have been created without precursors?

No organized brains in Ediacaran's found so far. They don't have heads. The gap is in the sudden organization into brains of substance.

Time is faster on the moon

DAVID: amazing what the human brain can do. Develop ways to measure tiny bits of time after realizing how important it is for long lunar visits or longer space travels. This shows my point clearly. Our brain is much too big and complicated for the single purpose of survival. Darwin's emphasis on adaptions for survival driving evolution does not fit this example. In short, human beings cannot be explained by Darwin's theory of evolution.

dhw: Of course our brain has evolved beyond the single purpose of survival! Do you really think Darwin was unaware of our civilisations and cultures and even in his day our advanced technologies? The question he tackles is how species originate. You have agreed that early sapiens used their brain mainly for survival (though they and some of our ancestors had already expanded the use to forms of art, decoration, and even ritual). Yes, we have now extended the use of our brains far, far beyond survival, but that does not alter the fact that we are still sapiens, i.e. that our species and our brains evolved from earlier species and brains. And that is the basis of Darwin’s theory. It’s called “common descent”.

As usual ignoring my point: "my presentation of Adler's proof of God in the creation of humans by Darwin's materialistic theory. There is no reason we should be an expected result. Compared to living apes, our mobile ability and brain power were not necessary to appear. This philosophic nuance escapes your thinking." We are much more than a result of common descent.