Explaining natural wonders (Animals)

by dhw, Thursday, April 27, 2017, 12:42 (2549 days ago) @ David Turell

TONY: I don't particularly have an issue with saying that organisms are intelligent, just that the intelligence is very, very limited. It is not difficult to imagine god imprinting birds with the concept of a nest and allowing their limited intelligence to tweak that concept without allowing them going beyond the concept of 'nest'.

I agree that there are degrees of intelligence, and some organisms are more limited than others. But, still wearing my theist’s hat, I see no reason why one should assume that your God would not have given the first nest-builders the intelligence to use their beaks and claws and the materials available to build themselves a safe home up in the trees. And I certainly can’t see why he would find it necessary to teach one particular bird how to build one particular variation. Ditto for migration, camouflage, parasitism, hunting techniques, defensive techniques, symbiotic relationships etc. etc. Yes, limited intelligence, but intelligence all the same, without the need for your God to preprogramme or dabble or “imprint” anything except, perhaps, intelligence itself.

Dhw: If you really can’t tell me what you mean by guidelines, you should not be surprised that I have a problem with them.
DAVID: 'Guidelines' obviously means there are instructions in the genome we haven't found, or God offers directions directly (by dabbling).

So “guidelines” turn out to be the same as preprogramming or direct instructions. That makes the weaverbird, the wasp, the spider, the cuttlefish, the monarch butterfly etc. into automatons, with no inventive intelligence of their own. It puts them on a par with the sea urchin, and leads to the following:

dhw: As always, you refuse to accept the possibility that organisms without a brain may be intelligent. I find it very hard to believe that your God would have taken the trouble to preprogramme this mechanism 3.8 billion years ago or give the sea urchin personal tuition, especially if all he wanted to do was design humans. I therefore look for an alternative.
DAVID: He got to create humans by evolving them. Urchins were one step on the way. How else does evolution progress? The urchins weapons are too complex, and require intricate planning, well beyond some reflex neurons.

So your God designed the urchin’s spikes and all the other natural wonders because his only purpose was to design humans. As I said before, your God – who let us remember is now without limitations – moves in mysterious ways. See above for a less mysterious hypothesis.