More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Thursday, August 06, 2015, 21:07 (3188 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: This is why I present natures wonders with cooperating organisms such as flowers and butterflies (monarchs and milkweed) and symbiotic relationships. They appear 'made for each other' which may well be the case. Your approach asks the cell community in milkweed to invent a flower that will attract Monarch's.
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>DHW: And, to quote Tony, your approach asks the first living cells to contain and pass on through billions of years and organisms a computer programme for “every possible variation of every possible variant into every single organism,” including the weaverbird's nest, the plover's migration, and the symbiosis between milkweed and Monarch. Symbiosis and cooperation were key factors in evolution according to Lynn Margulis, and by a strange coincidence, she also championed the cause of bacterial intelligence! Just a step away from the intelligent, inventive mechanism that might do away with the need for this extraordinary programme of yours.
> -See my first response to your post.- -> TONY: I'm prepared to say that taking the genetic material from one organism, mitochondria, does not tell us anything about the host organism. Ironically, mtDNA doesn't mutate much (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_DNA). And the origins of it are presumed, not known. So we are using an element that we have very little knowledge of its origin to determine what is, and is not, a modern human. We do this because nuclear DNA tends not to survive. It is the god of gaps.
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> I understand your unwillingness to be drawn on this issue, but DNA is not the only factor involved. Enough is known of the australopithecines to tell us that they were bipedal - a crucial difference between apes and humans - whereas their brains and craniums were closer to those of the apes than to ours. They are clearly not modern humans, but they are not apes either, and even evolutionist palaeontologists can't agree amongst themselves which “species” might have been man's ancestor. But if I've understood you correctly, you regard them all as variations on an earlier form of human. My apologies if I've got this wrong, but if I haven't, my question remains: do you think God created them and modern humans separately, or modern humans evolved as “variants” from these so-called pre-humans?-http://erectuswalksamongst.us/Chap9.html
http://johnhawks.net/explainer/laboratory/race-cranium/
http://www.becominghuman.org/node/homo-erectus-0
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/03/20_daka.html-
In general, they are saying that they are all very similar to modern humans when the overall size and stature of the individual is taken into account. Also, that last link calls into question their claims of splitting species as well. -I think that humanity was created in the same prototype fashion that I believe other creatures were created. They have a baseline set of variables, components, and behaviors that can be recombined in unique ways to produce a wide variety of results, but at the end of the day, they are all human.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.