Human evolution: Denisovan contribution (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, November 11, 2024, 08:12 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

QUOTE: "In the review article, Dr. Ongaro and Prof. Emilia Huerta-Sanchez outline evidence suggesting that several Denisovan populations, who likely had an extensive geographical range from Siberia to Southeast Asia and from Oceania to South America, were adapted to distinct environments."

DAVID: we are an amalgam of several varieties of HOMO forms which contributed differences based upon their climate of origin. God might have thought this might be the perfect way to create the best final design. To ask why God did not directly do it brings us back to the question of why He used evolution instead of direct creation.

dhw: All these varieties confirm the theory that evolution develops as a result of cells adapting to or exploiting different environments. You can’t answer your own question if you insist that H. sapiens was your omnipotent, omniscient God’s one and only purpose. It simply doesn’t make sense. But if God exists, the whole of evolution makes perfect sense if he planned a free-for-all through cellular autonomy (with the option of dabbling if he wanted to), or if he was deliberately experimenting with different forms in order to make new discoveries, or in order to find a particular formula (e.g. for a being “in his own image”, which is your view of his purpose). And of course evolution also makes perfect sense if you believe that the first cells miraculously assembled themselves by chance and proceeded to create the free-for-all of species that come and then go or are lucky enough (Raup) to stay because of their ability to survive the changing conditions.

DAVID: I view God as a mind at work. He knows all and can do anything He wishes.

If God exists, then I would find this feasible. That is why I have argued that he could have created an Eden (a world without evil) if he had wished, but you insist that he had no choice.

DAVID: He evolved humans for His own reasons, at which we must guess.

According to you he also designed every other species for His own reasons, and had to cull 99.9% of them because they were irrelevant to his one and only purpose. And you can’t even think of a single reason for this procedure, which is why you slate your God as an inefficient, messy, cumbersome designer.

DAVID: All of them have been exposed in the past here and I believe they represent human wishes about/for God.

You have propose that your God wanted to create us in order that we should recognize him and worship him. That would be his wish, not ours.

DAVID: A natural free-for-all would not necessarily produce the human brain.

Very true. A natural free-for-all would not necessarily have produced dinosaurs, whales, ants or the duck-billed platypus either. Your God may have dabbled, or he may have been delighted at all the different, unexpected products of his invention.

DAVID: As a most unusual result, it is a perfect object to use as a proof of God, as Adler did. dhw, as usual, finds reasons to avoid God in a direct way.

According to some ID-ers, the complexities of all life are enough to prove God’s existence. As for me, I have just offered you no less than three logical THEISTIC alternatives to your own totally irrational version of your God’s evolutionary purpose and method. For good measure, I added the atheist alternative. Stop pretending that my theistic alternatives “avoid” God. They avoid the insult that you throw at your God with your insistence that only you know his purpose and his inexplicably inefficient method of achieving the purpose you impose on him.