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

by dhw, Thursday, April 03, 2025, 11:30 (1 day, 7 hours, 47 min. ago) @ David Turell

The savannah theory

DAVID: 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.

We are learning that all kinds of hominids lived in all kinds of environments and even interbred with one another. But nobody knows the origin of bipedalism, which must have taken place long before hominids spread far and wide. It is perfectly logical to theorize that a particular group or groups at a particular time found itself forced to explore the savannah, just as certain land mammals might have been forced to survive by leaving the land and exploring the sea. Your theory is that in all cases, your God operated on legs and pelvises, or other parts of the anatomy, and then told his patients to go walkies/swimmies. Please tell us why the fact that hominids later inhabited all kinds of environments makes your theory of the ORIGIN more logical than mine.

The Cambrian and evolution

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?

DAVID: I simply agreed God is inefficient.

You didn’t “simply agree”. You have manufactured theories which show your God to be inefficient and incompetent. But you refuse to consider even the possibility that he might actually have created precisely what he wanted to create.

The human brain

DAVID: Preparation for new requirements anticipates new uses.

dhw: 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.

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

Yes, every expansion would have supplied new cells in order to fulfil new requirements, and would then have complexified until once again more new cells were needed. And so 315,000 years ago, the new cells would have been added in response to what were then new requirements. They did not then nod off until needed a couple of thousand years later, but would have complexified in response to any new requirements. The fact that these new requirements have multiplied enormously in modern times does not change the process of requirement eliciting response, as opposed to your theory that response anticipates requirement!

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.

DAVID: By human analysis.
By YOUR human analysis! Do you honestly think all your fellow believers praise God for his inefficiency and incompetence?

Belief vs non-belief

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.

DAVID: I think 'might believe' is better put.

Atheists “might believe” in God? I’d put this on a par with your belief that autonomy means automaticity, a free-for-all and intelligence mean following instructions, descent from 0.1% means descent from 99.9%, all-powerful means powerless, not to mention inefficient and incompetent etc.