New Miscellany 1 &:2: bio, evolution, intelligence, eco (General)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, 11:36 (7 days ago) @ David Turell

The smelly hoatzin

dhw: [..] Why do you think your God designed this weird bird?

DAVID: Usual answer: part of a necessary ecosystem.

dhw: Usual question: necessary for what? For our existence and food? Your own comment was “a best example of an inefficient, cumbersome evolutionary system”. It could hardly be inefficient and cumbersome if the stinky bird was necessary!

You have dropped the subject, no doubt because it once again demonstrates the absurdity of your theory of evolution.

Immune responses

DAVID: If A is made just as B is made it is a formulaic system.

dhw: All evolutionary adaptations and innovations entail changes to the structure of cell communities. So you might just as well say the whole of evolution is a “formulaic system”. How does that prove that the changes are not organized by intelligence – in your case that of your God, and in Shapiro’s that of the cells (though I add that their intelligence may have been designed by your God)?

DAVID: Immunity through the production of antibodies is a singular process of choosing a part of the enemy to which a killer protein is added.

And each new enemy requires the production of a new antibody, which often occurs after large numbers of deaths, and in some cases has to be ongoing, since the enemy can also counter antibodies by mutating itself. How does any of this prove that your God organizes every success (and failure), as opposed to the cells themselves doing the job?

Evolution and intelligence

DAVID: All animals think about survival but not conceptually.

dhw: What does that mean? One day, Pete the possum sees Willy wolf sniff a dead possum and walk away, so next time he sees the wolf, he plays dead. Is this less likely than your God popping down to Planet Earth in order to teach the possum how to play dead?

DAVID: Your just-so story requires conceptual thought by the possum!!

I don’t care what kind of thought it is. Did the possum work it out for himself, or did your God pop in to give him lessons?

Mind and cosmos

DAVID: Consciousness requires a brain of neurons.

dhw: This is even more confusing, but very illuminating, since you keep referring to the consciousness of NDE patients who have lost the use of their brain of neurons. But I was responding to your theory that we use God’s consciousness to form our own, as opposed to the theory that your God may have given us part of his consciousness. […]

DAVID: The neurons act a a receiver of consciousness (Van Lommel)

So consciousness requires a brain of neurons except when it doesn’t (NDEs), and “we use God’s consciousness structure to form our consciousness”, but “we” only provide a receiver. What part of “us” uses God’s consciousness? I’m still very confused. Why is not possible that your God simply imbued our cells with autonomous consciousness?

Theoretical origin of life

DAVID: That God's use of evolution is inefficient is a human viewpoint, certainly not God's.

dhw: And the human who has created this viewpoint is you. I very much doubt that there are many of your fellow believers who would agree with you. Even an agnostic like me finds the idea of an omnipotent but inefficient God pretty absurd.

DAVID: I repeat, a human viewpoint, not God's.

I repeat, the view that your God is inefficient is YOUR human view. I suspect that your God would roll his metaphorical eyes on hearing your theory.