New Miscellany 1: evolution, insects, intelligence (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, May 21, 2025, 12:19 (8 hours, 38 minutes ago) @ David Turell

The smelly hoatzin

DAVID: My thoughts about the past are based on real facts and are not negated by guesses about the future.

dhw: The only “real facts” are that there is life on Earth, it began with simple forms, and gradually more complex forms emerged, including humans, who are the latest species. It is not a “real fact” that there is a God, that if there is a God, his sole purpose was to design humans plus food, that he directly designed every single species, that he had to cull 99.9% of them because they were irrelevant to that purpose, and that he is a messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer. Nor is it a fact that a billion years from now there will be no new species, which will prove that your non-factual God’s non-factual purpose was us and our food. Please stop pretending that your illogical theory of evolution is based on facts.

DAVID: Our current knowledge is 1)we do not know how speciation happens, 2) that it is not happening now and 3) we are the most advanced form it created. 4) It all looks designed. From those facts I conclude there is a designer I call God. Your contorted view of evolution is again displayed. 5) All evolutionary processes cull less advanced forms.

The numbers are mine. 1) yes, it is a fact that we do not know how speciation happens, and so it is not a fact that your God designed every species. 2) Yes, speciation is not happening now, but it is not a fact that it will never happen again in the future. 3) I accept that we are intellectually the most advanced form of life, but this does not prove that there is a God who designed us. 4) It all looks designed does not make it a fact that there is a designer you call God. Your contorted view of “facts” is again displayed. 5) There are no evolutionary processes comparable to that of life’s history, and I challenge you to name a single evolutionary process in which designers knowingly design and then destroy things which are irrelevant to their purpose. Please respond to my challenge.

DAVID: You keep trying to sell your nutty distorted view of God's evolution of humans.

dhw […] I am not trying to sell any view when I point out that your own view of this being ridicules him as messy, cumbersome and inefficient because according to you he deliberately creates and then culls 99.9 out of 100 species that have no connection with the purpose you impose on him, even though you believe this omnipotent, omniscient being to be perfectly capable of designing anything he wants “de novo”! Stop dodging.

DAVID: We have the Cambrian gap to exhibit de novo creation and we have an evolutionary process there after. We can recognize Cambrian descendants in today's organisms.

So why would a God who according to you can create species “de novo” have to create and then cull all the species that were irrelevant to his one and only purpose?

DAVID: Of course there was culling with or without a God. Our difference is I see the need for a designing mind I label as God. You see a directionless process that produced us, a senseless view.

This is a complete non sequitur. In these discussions I am attacking your totally illogical theory of theistic evolution. I am not attacking your belief that God exists. On the contrary, I have offered you three alternative THEISTIC interpretations of evolution, all of which you reject because although you agree that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours, you insist that he does not have thought patterns and emotions like ours. Stop dodging!

Animal minds: Insect tool use

DAVID: Testing the insects proves the point.

dhw: Of course. And on Thursday you accepted insect intelligence, but on Friday you did not.
Which is it this week?

DAVID: Repeat: test to see how much intelligence is present.

Last Thursday, insects were intelligent. You have accepted that intelligence tests on ants prove that insects are intelligent. (Also I seem to remember bees being tested).But you still think it’s possible that your God had to provide instructions to the insect that uses resin to attract its prey. Presumably because, just like the smelly hoatzin - which you cite as a "best example" of your God's inefficiency - we humans could not survive without it.