New Miscellany 2: savannah, brain, Mars, atheism (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 02, 2025, 20:47 (1 day, 4 hours, 40 min. ago) @ dhw

The savannah theory

DAVID: […] When the current findings were unknown the savannah theory had a logical appeal. Hominids forced to walk because they had no trees. Now we find bipedal hominids in forests. What forced them to walk upright? I say God did it.

dhw: The current findings only tell us what happened after the first bi-pedallers had spread far and wide. The savannah theory says the first bipedallers may have descended from the trees in order to explore life on the ground. You say your God operated on their legs and pelvises and told them to go walkies. Now please tell us why the new findings “dilute” the savannah theory but do not “dilute” your own.

God can supply bipedalism anywhere, but the savannah theory is trees disappeared so poor hominids had to walk. Hominids everywhere living in trees denigrates that theory.

The Cambrian

DAVID: Yes, evolution is an illogical method for a God who can create the Cambrian Explosion de novo.

dhw: But in spite of your new-found acceptance of the “free-for-all” theory as an answer to the theodicy problem, you cannot even consider it as a possible alternative to your theory that your God is an inefficient and incompetent designer.

DAVID: Agreed as above.

dhw: I never know quite what you agree to, since virtually every day you reject something already “agreed”. Do you now agree that the deliberate “free-for-all” theory provides a more logical explanation for the irrelevant 99.9% than your own theory of divine incompetence and inefficiency?

I simply agreed God is inefficient.

The human brain

DAVID: Preparation for new requirements anticipates new uses.

Of course “preparation” would be anticipatory. But you keep agreeing that changes to the brain, whether through complexification or expansion, are responses to new requirements, not preparations for requirements that may not exist for thousands of years. Our own new cells did not hang around doing nothing for thousands of years until needed for rocket science. They have complexified in response to each new requirement.

The cells needed for complexification were supplied 315,000 years ago.

Paranthropus fossil

DAVID: I agree God's evolution is not straight forward.

dhw: But you remain convinced that it proves your God’s inefficiency and incompetence.

By human analysis.

Belief vs non-belief
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-atheists-secular-countries-intuitive-religious.html?utm_s...

dhw: There is no need for me to repeat my analysis of an absurdly muddled argument, which begins by claiming that atheists have an instinctive belief in God, and ends with the obvious, totally irrelevant conclusion that there are and will probably continue to be religious people even where religion is in decline.

DAVID: Your good analysis of a weird paper is appreciated. It still comes down to believers are felt to avoid evil and are safer to trust.

dhw: I could ask you “felt by whom?” but you’re probably right. I’m sure, though, that even you will agree that such prejudices have been massively eroded by the revelations of child and sexual abuse and corruption, all scandalously covered up by various church leaders right up to the present day. This sort of evil is common in almost all spheres of human activity that were once thought trustworthy (the police, politics, show business celebrities). In any case, the misguided trust is irrelevant to the main thesis of this paper, which is that people who disbelieve in God actually believe in God.

I think 'might believe' is better put.